


strings of secrets cut the ties that bind me

by citadelofswords



Series: the deserter's song (the pacific rim au) [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Pacific Rim (2013), Young Avengers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Canonical Character Death, F/M, M/M, Multi, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Temporary Character Death, more warnings can be found within the fic, there are a lot of characters I apologize
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-12
Updated: 2014-11-12
Packaged: 2018-02-25 03:39:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 35,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2607110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/citadelofswords/pseuds/citadelofswords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>By the end, there was nothing but the moon, hanging in the sky. Literally hanging- Steve had reached up and touched it and watched it swing, hoping it would hypnotize him into a dream world where Bucky hadn't been ripped out of their Jaeger and cast into the ocean below to drown and die alone.  </p><p>Steve gripped the wall with both hands and told himself to breathe before he had a panic attack. Bucky wasn't here anymore, but he could always find him in the Drift if he missed him too much. The ice had numbed the loss to the point that Steve didn't feel sad, necessarily. He was only  <i>empty</i>. </p><p>He was only missing his  <i>soulmate</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	strings of secrets cut the ties that bind me

**Author's Note:**

> LOOK AT THIS MONSTER. LOOK AT IT. MARVEL IN HOW AMAZING IT IS. In some ways, I can't believe I actually finished this. It's the longest thing I've ever written and for quite some time I wasn't sure if it would ever end.
> 
> Very very very special thanks to [Holly](http://margaretrogers.tumblr.com) for beta'ing this fic like three times and catching all my stupid mistakes, AS WELL AS TO MY LOVELY ARTIST FRAN who did SUCH GOOD ART for me.
> 
> You can find that [here.](http://branquignole.livejournal.com/55933.html)
> 
> You may find warnings at the end, in order to avoid spoiling. They abound in this fic, however, so if you are concerned, please scroll to the bottom now.
> 
> Title taken from The Deserter's Song by Radical Face. It's the biggest canon Stucky song I've ever heard, [go have a listen.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mda2HPbJZvA)

Steve snapped back to consciousness feeling like there was a hole in his heart.   

The walls around him were clean and stark white— very different from the interior of Freedom Howl, which had been full of color and light. An old-fashioned radio was tilted towards him, lazily playing classical jazz that Steve remembered from the old days. The sheets he was on were clean and smelled too much like sanitation for his liking. Slowly but surely, he began to sit up.   

"Oh good, you're conscious." Steve snapped his head around, feeling his neck protest, to find the source of the voice. There was a woman in military greens facing the window away from him, brown hair coming to her shoulders.    

"Peggy?" Steve asked breathlessly, before he realized that this woman's hair was straight, and Peggy's had always been curly.   

"No, Captain." The woman turned around; she had a sterner face than Peggy's, and looked far older than her years. "I'm afraid I’m not Peggy."   

Steve squinted at her face. "You seem familiar," he muttered. "Would you mind telling me where I am?"   

"You are at the  Shatterdome, off the coast of Hong Kong." the woman said crisply. "Do you remember what happened?"   

"I wish I didn't." Bucky's scream. The cold feeling of ice freezing his limbs. Hanging in the Drift, reliving the last moments of his life and all else he and Bucky had shared for... "How many years was I on ice?"   

The woman's eyebrows furrowed. "You've been missing for fourteen years, Captain Rogers. We found you almost a year ago now. But the thawing process took over a year, mainly because we’ve never had a case quite like this before. So, in total, you’ve been on ice for fifteen years."   

_Fifteen_? Steve slowly lowered his head into his hands. "I need a drink," he mumbled.   

But then again... fifteen years wasn't that long. The Commandos could be still around. And Stark, and Peggy. Tony Stark would be- what, twenty-five? His own age, almost. And James Rhodes would be nearing forty. His  friends were still alive.    

Except for Bucky. But he didn't want to think about that.   

"It's a lot to handle," the woman continued to say. "I can leave you alone for a moment, if that would be—,"   

"No." Steve said hurriedly. "I think... I don't think that's best."   

"Very well." She nodded her head. "Do you… remember me?"   

Steve counted backwards fifteen years in his head and tried to picture this stern woman as a younger version. "Maria," he said breathlessly. "Maria Hill?"   

"Assistant Director Hill, now," Hill said, but she looked pleased. “Not much else has changed here. Your old colonel Phillips was unfortunately killed, but Marshal Fury is not so much different.”

Steve felt kind of woozy. His head had started spinning as he rose to his feet and, for just a moment, he felt like he was going to be sick. “I’m sorry, Assistant Director, but I think I would like a few minutes alone after all.”

Hill’s gaze softened as she watched him stand there, clenching and unclenching his fists. “Of course, Captain,” she said. “Feel free to roam wherever you like. Nowhere is off-limits to you.”

 

* * *

 

"Them finding you on ice was kind of a secret, so keep in mind a lot of people are going to be shocked that you're still around."   

Steve slowly turned around. Standing in front of him was a woman who only  came to his shoulders, with curly red hair, an easy smile, and eyes sharper than a knife. She could only be in her late twenties, but her eyes looked far, far older.   

"Natasha Romanoff," she said by way of introducing herself. "Hill told me to find you, show you 'round the place. I expect it'll be a lot different from what you remember."   

"It doesn't look so different," Steve noted, looking around the entrance. "Who knew about me being on ice?"   

"Fury and Hill. Pepper Potts— she's busy right now, you can meet her later— Clint Barton, and Bruce Banner."   

"Not- not Howard?"   

Natasha's eyes hardened. "I'm sorry, Cap." she said. "Stark and his wife were killed almost eight years ago now, in a freak accident off the coast of Hawaii."   

Steve's eyes widened. He couldn't believe it. Stark and Peggy— gone...? "What about their son? Rhodey?  The Commandos?"  _Please, God, they can't all be dead._

"The Commandos retired. All far away. But very much alive." Natasha softened slightly.  "Tony is a scientist now. A lot more bitter than he was when you knew him, but Pepper makes him happy. Rhodey works under Fury— he'll be ecstatic."   

Steve shook his head, a smile lighting up his features. "I should get in touch with the Commandos," he mumbled.   

"Later," Natasha said. "Come on, you still have to meet the crews."   

She pulled him gently towards the elevator leading to the factory levels. There were running footsteps behind them and a woman yelled, "WAIT! Hold the door!"   

A woman with curly brown hair dashed into the elevator just as the door closed, followed shortly by another woman with caramel-colored hair and a frazzled expression. "Thanks," the first woman panted. "I didn't think we were  gonna  make it, Jane!"   

"Jane Foster and Darcy Lewis." Natasha introduced. "Our best, if you discount Dr. Banner."   

Darcy turned pink. Jane gasped. "You're the Captain!"   

"Please," Steve shifted his weight to his other foot. "It's just Steve."   

"It's an honor." Jane Foster had three pencils tucked behind her ear and another two in her ponytail, and she stared at Steve as though he were her childhood hero. Darcy looked as though she were ogling him, which at least was a natural reaction.   

"It's a pleasure," Steve returned, receiving a dazzling smile.   

The elevator door opened and Darcy darted out again, shouting something about needing to find Rhodey, and a hand shoved in between the doors to hold it open for... Steve blinked in shock as Tony Stark stepped into the elevator, eyes cast downward, hood up and hiding his face. The lines on his face were very distinct for a twenty-five year old man, but he'd grown up to look like a perfect mix of Howard and Peggy. It was staggering to see the boy he'd known as a man.   

"Mr. Stark?" Jane asked. "Are you all right?" That was disconcerting. Howard had always been Mr. Stark.   

Steve was reassured when Tony said, "Stop calling me Mr. Stark. Mr. Stark was my father. I'm Tony. And I'm wickedly  hungover  right now, so no, I'm not really all right."   

"I didn't think this was what you meant when you said bitter." Steve said to Natasha, before he could stop himself.   

The elevator was silent for a long moment. Then Tony punched a button on the elevator wall and turned around, throwing his hood back. Steve stared at Tony and Tony stared back, and then Tony laughed bitterly. "Of course you would look exactly the same when you came back. Too bad my parents died before they could see you."   

"Tony," Steve said, and reached out. Tony drew back.   

"Look, you're a ghost of what was before…” Tony waved his hand aimlessly, “all this shit. Things are different now than when you went under. We're not what we used to be- we're not as moral as we once were."   

Steve faltered. "It's good to see you," he said, finally, lamely. Tony's mouth quirked into a smile.   

"Yeah," he mumbled. "Guess it's good to see you, too. Hope  you bring some sanity back to this hellhole."   

Then he was pressing the emergency stop button again, and the doors dinged open on the next floor. Two steps and he was gone, and the hole in Steve's heart was bigger than ever.   

“Let’s get to LOCCENT,” Natasha said quietly, and her hand closed around Steve’s wrist. Steve tried very hard to remember to breathe.

The rest of the elevator ride was painful.

LOCCENT was busy with light and color, and Steve took comfort in the fact that nothing save the people had really changed since the last time. There were more people, and Steve noted more ponytails than he remembered from the last time, but he supposed that it was for the best. Peggy had always been the best at directing Jaegers anyway— more women in LOCCENT meant less deaths.

“Pepper!” Natasha called. A woman with red hair pulled away from her face stood from where she’d been bending over a computer. Steve had expected to see a face lined as Maria’s had been, but Pepper was young and her lips perpetually curved upward.

“Oh, Captain Rogers!” Pepper cried joyfully, and LOCCENT went quiet. “Oops,” she said bashfully. “Was no one meant to know yet?”

“It’s fine,” Steve reassured her, and that started everyone else off.

“Cap!”

“Shit, Cap, it’s good to see you again.”

“I was so small when you were around— do you remember me?”

“Wow.”

There was a lot of handshaking and shoulder clapping. Someone took both of his hands in his and explained that their father had been one of the Commandos— one of the men Steve had rescued during the war before the Kaiju invasion.

“Here,” Pepper said, gently batting people away. “Come on, I think he just woke up, give the man some room, okay?”

Slowly, people began to flit away, but everyone wanted their chance to say hello to Steve. He was, in fact, grateful for the noise. It was a good distraction.

“Where’s Fury?” Natasha asked, in French.

“Not here right now,” Pepper said. “He said he would meet with Steve tomorrow.”

“I’m fine with tomorrow.” Steve interrupted, also in French. Natasha started.

“I’m sorry,” Natasha mumbled.

“Nah, it’s fine,” Steve shifted back to English. “Don’t like speaking it that much. Last time I was in France was before the war.” Before the war, during the bad days before the ‘roids. When it had just been him and Bucky against the world, and he had had that shot with Peggy that he hadn’t taken. He swallowed hollowly and jumped as a hand touched his arm.

“I’m sorry, Steve,” Pepper said quietly. Steve blinked at her and then shrugged.

“Nothing can be done now,” he said, trying to sound light. “You wanna show me what you guys are doing here now?”

Pepper slowly turned away and Steve swallowed down the lump in his throat and tried to ignore the hole in his heart, steadily growing the more he realized that Bucky wasn’t here anymore.

 

* * *

 

Steve slowly wandered the halls late that night. There was nothing he could really do until he met with Marshal  Fury, and he wasn't feeling up to confronting the obvious question at the moment.  

He could still remember what it was like to be trapped in the Drift for so long. There were moments of lucidity, where he frantically questioned where he was, why he wasn't breathing, where's Bucky, where the fuck is Bucky? But most of the time it had been memory— Peggy smiling kindly at him in their youth, before he'd gone off to war and she'd married Howard Stark after he'd accidentally gotten her pregnant. Bucky's laugh that bounced off of the walls and even off of the tents. Dr. Erskine explaining the 'roids  and their effects to him before the first injection. The first few weeks had been so painful, and Steve had relived the pain twice over in the ice.  

By the end, there was nothing but the moon, hanging in the sky. Literally hanging- Steve had reached up and touched it and watched it swing, hoping it would hypnotize him into a dream world where Bucky hadn't been ripped out of their Jaeger and cast into the ocean below to drown and die alone.  

Steve gripped the wall with both hands and told himself to breathe before he had a panic attack. Bucky wasn't here anymore, but he could always find him in the Drift if he missed him too much. The ice had numbed the loss to the point that Steve didn't feel sad, necessarily. He was only  _empty_. 

He was only missing his  _soulmate_.  

"Hey," said a voice behind him, and Steve jumped a foot in the air. "You good?"  

Steve whipped around. There was a kid standing in front of him— he had to be no older than nineteen— with hair that stuck out on all ends and a concerned look on his face. Steve realized that his breathing was still heavy and told himself to take it easy.  

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I'm okay."  

"Sure," the kid said, looking nervous. "Okay, can you do me a favor? Come with me, please, and hang out with us down in the bays? I don't  wanna  be the last person to see you alive if you suddenly keel over from stress."  

Steve glanced backwards. His room was five feet away... but company sounded nice, and he  had  been asleep for fifteen years. "Sure," he said. "I'll come down."  

"Awesome," The kid relaxed and set off. "I'm Peter, by the way. Peter Parker. You're Cap, right?"  

"Yeah, that's me." Steve sighed. "Does everyone here know who I am?"  

"Pretty much." Peter shrugged with one shoulder. "It's mostly because of Sharon, I guess. You're kind of her idol. 'My aunt Peggy used to say—' it's sweet."  

"Sharon   _Carter_?" Steve shook his head. "She was six when I was Drifting."  

"Yeah, now she's twenty-four." Peter said. "She works with Pepper in administration. Oh, here we are."  

The launch bays were a lot more full than Steve had remembered, and the Jaegers were bigger. There were a group of people all gathered around what looked like a campfire (on a  _smooth metal floor_ , Steve thought,  _what has science come to_ ) watching as a large man enthusiastically told a story with the smoke billowing up from the fire.   

"Brought Cap," Peter called, and everyone around the fire froze. "He's not  gonna  get us in trouble, don't worry."  

"Captain Rogers!" the large man boomed, and rose from his spot on the floor. He was easily seven feet tall, with long blond hair and a smile that split his face. "I have heard many a good tale of your adventures. It is an honor to meet such a noble warrior."  

Steve tried to smile, but the man had caught his hand between two of his own and Steve had heard bones crack.  

"This is Thor," Peter introduced. "And the ladies are Kate and America." 

"Hi, Cap,” Kate called. “It's a pleasure, and all that jazz."  

Steve managed a smile, and winced when Thor had turned around, shaking his hand to  dispel  the pain. "And I thought I had super strength," he muttered.  

"Ah, yes. About that." Peter said. "Thor's not exactly from around here."  

"My father cast me out of my realm, so I have come to stay in yours." Thor said. "It's very pleasant here. I sometimes yearn for a good fight, but I am never truly bored!"

Steve opened his mouth to ask _wait, are you an alien? Did I sleep through the first extraterrestrial contact that didn’t involve the demolition of a major city?_ when someone behind him cleared their throat. "All right, settle down," said a new, sharp voice, and the fire immediately went out. "Someone switch on the lights- Sharon, would you?" Lines of glowing blue traced the walls, throwing the newcomer into sudden focus. "Thor, what have I told you about setting fires in the launch bays?"  

"I did that one," Kate piped up.  

"Not helping, Miss Bishop." The man turned to face Steve and froze dead solid. There was something very familiar about the lines of his face, and it hit Steve in the face like a ton of bricks when he spotted a familiar scar over the man's left eyebrow.  

" _Rhodey_?"  

Rhodey’s mouth hung open slightly. "Holy shit, Cap, I think you broke him." Peter crowed.  

"Language, chico," America chided gently. Peter just grinned at her.  

“I—,” Rhodey closed his mouth and gulped. “I didn’t know they’d found you.”

“I didn’t know either,” Steve said, earning a snort from Peter. “You and I are on about the same page as far as information goes. You’re looking good, Rhodey. How’s your girlfriend?”

“She’s good,” Rhodey nodded slowly. “Doesn’t live here. Promised I’d stay alive and come rejoin her in California after all this stopped. _Thor_. No lighting another fire.” Thor jumped guiltily.

“How does he _see_ this?” Peter stage-whispered.

Rhodey bounced on his heels, looking uncomfortable. “Did they—,” He cut himself off, looking thoughtful for a moment, before bursting out with, “Did they find Bucky too?”

Peter drew in a breath. “Who is this Bucky Barnes everyone keeps talking about?” Thor whispered.

“No,” Steve said, quietly. “He’s dead.”

“Oh,” Rhodey said.

Steve had to control himself to keep his voice from cracking as he said, “He woulda liked to see you, though.” Rhodey’s eyes lit up.

“Do you wanna talk some more over coffee?” Steve asked. “I don’t see myself sleeping for the next week, and I’d like to talk to someone who remembers… before.”

Rhodey nodded, and then turned back to Kate, America, and Peter. “Go to bed, you three,” he said. “Unless Thor has something for you to work on.”

“Smasher needs a tuneup,” Kate informed Thor.

“Then let us, ahem, _tune her up_.” Thor said, and Kate and Peter dissolved into giggles.

 

* * *

 

Steve found himself back at the bays the next morning , watching Thor and Peter hard at work on the biggest, blackest Jaeger in the bays. Curling gold letters around her waist proclaimed her as Sunshine Smasher— Steve had never recalled any Jaeger’s name painted on like they were boats, but she was lithe and the letters seemed to give an effect of a chain link belt, and it wasn’t his Jaeger anyway.

“Hey, Rogers.” Steve turned around to see Natasha coming up behind him, wearing a long black coat she’d wrapped around her small body. “Moping some more?”

“Kind of angry, actually.” Steve muttered. “Have you ever wanted to punch anyone so hard that they see entire galaxies, not just stars?”

Natasha snorted. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re a dork, Rogers?”

“It’s Steve, and yes, they have.” _You punk, Stevie!_ Steve shook the memory off. “I like space.”

“You’d fit right in with Dr. Foster in her lab, then.” Natasha bumped her shoulder against his arm. “Admiring the view?”

“They’re huge.”

“Stark took some persuading, but he came through eventually.”

Steve furrowed his eyebrows. “I don’t understand what you mean.”

“Well, Tony lost his parents to the war,” Natasha’s hand landed on his shoulder as though she could feel his flinch coming, “as well as you and Bucky, who were the closest things he had to uncles. He left the program, locking up all of Howard’s projects behind him. They begged him to come back in after a Cat3 ripped Smasher apart and killed one of her young pilots. But he was different.”

Steve blinked at her. “What did he do this time?” he asked, sighing, remembering how Tony used to get into Howard’s projects, break them, and then accidentally give his father a breakthrough that would have him shut up for days.

“He’d been experimenting with single-pilot Jaegers.” Natasha rolled her eyes. “He showed up with a miniature arc reactor shoved in his chest. It keeps him alive. He’d lost his copilot, right before he left— Jarvis, if you remember. It was just about his last straw. He hasn’t even touched a Jaeger since, just given all his research to Thor to have him do all the work himself.”

“Jarvis?”

“Yeah, he’s dead. There were four isolated incidents of copilots being ripped apart in five years after Howard’s death. It was losing Cassie that brought Tony back. Why are you angry?”

The transition was so smooth that Steve stood in shock for a long moment before he said, “I was supposed to meet Fury today.”

“And?”

“He never showed. Hill came to give me a message from him.” Steve ground his teeth together and swung his head down. “He wants me to find a new drift partner,” he muttered. “He’s making me go back into a Jaeger.”

Natasha laughed bitterly. “Yeah, thought that would happen.”

“I can’t Drift with anyone, Nat.”

“I said the same thing, Steve, and here I am now,” Natasha touched her left ring finger and jerked her hand away as though she’d been burned. “He making you fight tomorrow?” Steve nodded. "Just go. Find someone you could drift with. Fury's not asking you to jump right back into the Jaeger. He just wants to be able to use you if necessary."   

Steve laughed bitterly. “Use me,” he said. “Well, you can tell Nick Fury that he can kiss my ass.”

 

* * *

 

Steve spent the entire night tossing and turning in his quarters, and paced in front of the elevator for an hour before Natasha found him.

“Ten minutes, Rogers,” she told him, and quirked an eyebrow up. “Better go down there.”

Steve sighed. “I don’t want to do this, Natasha,” he muttered.

“It’s okay,” Natasha said. “You’ll be alright. I’ll be there too, you know. You’ll have to fight against me.” She winked at him, kissed him on the cheek, and pressed the elevator button for him.

Steve turned around just as the door opened, revealing a skinny young man with hair buzzed so close to his head it was little more than stubble.

“Oh, sorry,” Steve said, and took a step back.

“Nah, it’s cool, you can come in,” said the man, and shuffled aside. Steve tentatively stepped in, noted the button for his floor was already pressed, and settled himself in for a long wait.

Then, he glanced over at the man next to him again.

"You're new." he noted.   

"Yeah, just got transferred here." The man looked all around. "This dome is a helluva lot bigger than the one in Cali. I'm Sam, by the way. Sam Wilson."   

"Steve." They shook hands. "How many tours?"   

"Hm?"   

"You were in the army, I can tell by your stance." Steve admitted. "I was too, before they drafted me for the Jaeger program."   

Sam smiled slowly. "Two tours," he said. "I was just getting settled back in the world, but they told me Fury needed some extra power. I volunteered. No better reason to get back in, am I right?"   

Steve shrugged listlessly. "You know who you're drifting with?"   

"Nah," Sam shrugged. "There's some training thing today. Finding partners for new people or something. You going?"  

"Yeah, Marshal Fury wants to 'use me' or something, if necessary."  

"That sounds sketchy, dude. You'll  wanna  be careful. Hey, whoa!"   

Steve turned around to see what Sam was gaping at and froze dead in his tracks. There, towering tall and proud thirty meters tall, across the docking bay, was Freedom Howl. His Jaeger had been fished out of the ice along with him.

The thought of the last time he had seen her, been inside her chest pulled at his heartstrings. Instead, he focused on Thor, perched on the shoulder, hammering something down. Peter was dangling from the rigging welding something into place. The entire crew seemed to be restoring it rather than taking it down, and Steve wasn't sure if he was grateful for it or afraid of the memories he knew were trapped in her armor.  

"Howler." Steve said, and pressed his hand to the glass of the elevator window. "God, I never dreamed I'd see her again."  

"She looks like she's seen better days, Cap." Sam said quietly. "You think it'll be okay?"  

"I'll be fine," Steve said listlessly, and then turned around. "Hang on. I never-,"  

"Steve and Freedom Howl?" Sam laughed. "Not hard to make the connection. Everyone knows about the legend. Howler and the rest of the Commandos went down in history as the best task force of Jaegers during the Red War. I just figured you'd rather have a friend then someone gawping over you all day."  

Steve smiled, wide and easy. "Yeah," he said. "You'd be right.  Wanna  go to training?"  

"You bet I do."  

 

* * *

 

None of it was right.  

Marshal  Fury was an imposing man in a long black coat and with an  eyepatch. Rhodey stood on one side of him, clean shaven and dignified, mouth pressed in a thin line, a clipboard in his hand. Maria stood in front of the two of them, watching Steve size up all of the candidates for his  drift partner.  

He'd fought almost  all of them, save Natasha, who currently stood in front of him. She was small, but she was sharp. Her hits were unpredictable, and they lasted for a good three minutes before she spun him to the ground, her staff hooked under his knee to lift him half off the floor. Fury stopped them there.  

Natasha was the only one who even came close to being able to drift with him, but she was nothing like he was used to. And, judging by the hard look he was getting from Rhodey, she was not going to be given up so easily.  

"You're not doing so well, Steve," Natasha said quietly. "Step it up a bit."  

"Wilson, Sam." Rhodey said, sounding exhausted.  

Sam strode forwards. He'd shed the army jacket in favor of the thin t-shirt he wore underneath, and he grinned lazily at Steve. "I'm not  gonna  take it easy on you just 'cause you've been a  Capsicle  for fifteen years." Sam quipped, and someone choked on their  laughter in the background.  

"Are you calling me an old man?" Steve asked. "Cause that's what that sounded like. You're not going to take it easy on me, fine, then I won't take it easy on you."  

"Bring it." Sam chortled, and drew his staff backwards.  

There were no fancy movements. There was simply the first swing, and Steve’s bo was locked with Sam’s. The atmosphere changed.

Confused, Steve tried again. Their staffs locked again. Sam’s grin, if it was possible, widened.

Steve didn't land a single hit on the first bout. Instead, he found himself bending backwards, his elbow being the only thing keeping his back off the floor, as Sam poked him in the chest with his bo. "One-no," Sam chuckled. "Get your head in the game, Cap."  

Steve huffed and straightened up, pushing Sam back a couple steps. Steve advanced on him, blocked Sam’s swing, and sliced around him, tapping Sam gently on the back. "One-one," he said.  

Sam fought like he’d lived with Jedi masters for the first fifteen years of his life. Where Bucky had been hard and brutal in his motions, Sam was light on his feet and quick to react and judge. It was a different experience for Steve, and yet, strangely, he welcomed it.

It continued much like that for the duration of the fight, which lasted a full five minutes before Fury finally lifted his hands and said, "I've seen enough." Neither of them had hit the floor once. Their entire audience was in raptures.  

"Everyone back to your bunks." Fury said coldly. "That's enough for today."  

Sam grinned at Steve, who was reminded of Bucky having the same expression after their first fight. "We didn't even need to fight," Bucky had said, and Steve remembered that, like his fight with Sam, that first fight with Bucky had seemed too intimate to have in front of so many people.  

“Captain Rogers, before you leave?” Hill beckoned him over. There was another woman standing next to her- a motherly looking woman with short dark hair and glasses. “Cap, this is Rebecca Kaplan. Rebecca, this is Captain Steve Rogers, just thawed out three days ago.”

“It’s an honor, sir,” Rebecca smiled at him warmly.

Steve smiled and offered her his hand to shake. “Reasoning, Hill?”

“I’m a psychologist,” Rebecca told him, and Steve tensed. “Relax, Captain. Director Hill thought you might like someone to talk to who could help you through whatever you’re feeling. We could walk and talk?” Steve glanced over at Sam, who was eyeing Natasha with interest, and nodded quickly.

“So,” Steve said, as they walked down the hall, “what got you involved here?”

“Oh, are we going to psychoanalyze me first?” Rebecca asked, but her eyes twinkled. “It’s my son, actually, Billy. He’s a Ranger. They move him between here and Malibu depending on where he’s needed. What about you?”

“I joined the Army and then broke every rule in the book to rescue a company of men from behind enemy lines,” Steve shrugged. “My CO decided to try and get rid of us by throwing me and the men from the company into the Jaeger program. It turned out we were—,” The words caught in his throat.

“Too good at it,” Rebecca said.

“If only I could have seen his face when he found out,” Steve chuckled. When he looked up, Rebecca was watching him carefully.

“You lied on your military forms, didn’t you?” she asked, and Steve started.

“How did you—,”

“Well, you just told me,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “As your new psychologist, I was given access to all your files. _All_ of them, Captain, including those from your sessions with Dr. Erskine, before the war days. The PPDC gave me access. I know that as a teenager, you were diagnosed with clinical depression, and had one suicide attempt at the age of seventeen that failed. At which point you began to see a psychologist. I know that at some point you were able to enlist, given that you did not log ‘clinical depression’ on your enlistment forms. I don’t know how you were able to prove that you didn’t have depression; that’s not mentioned anywhere, and it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’re here now, and we need to make sure that the strain of Drifting won’t be too much for you.”

Steve stopped to lean against the wall for a moment. “It was a white lie,” he said, finally. “At the time that I enlisted, I exhibited no symptoms of clinical depression. You can thank him for that.”

"Was it a cure?"

The 'roids. Dr. Erskine had prescribed them for managing his suicidal thoughts. It had been an experimental drug, one that had had the bonus side effects of curing everything else Steve had had, as well as increasing his height, his weight, and his physical strength. The nickname had come from Bucky. "Something like that."

Steve suspected that the 'roids had fully cured everything except the depression. 

“Will you promise me that if anything changes, you will come find me and tell me how you’re feeling?” Rebecca asked, stopping Steve with a hand on his chest.

Steve looked at her, the expression the closest thing he had seen to motherly since his own mother had died. Sarah would have liked Rebecca, he thought wryly. “Yes, I promise,” he said.

“Good.” Rebecca quirked her mouth up in a grin. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m due to video-link with my son in a few minutes, and I’d like to get a word in edgewise before Kate finds out.”

Steve quietly watched her continue down the hall and wondered why he still felt so empty.

By the time he made it back to his own room, he was limping, sore from the fights with Natasha and Sam. With a long, low sigh, he flopped onto his bed, feeling more exhausted than he had since he'd come out of the ice.  

The door clicked and Steve jerked, flooded with a sudden vision of Bucky walking through the door in front of him, throwing his jacket onto the floor. "Boy, I'm beat," he said gruffly, running a hand through short hair. "Budge up, Steve; just 'cause you're huge now doesn't mean you can take up the entire bed."  

Steve shook himself off. There was no Bucky to walk through the door anymore. He was never going to feel those calloused hands work at knots in his shoulders again. Nor would he feel the solid warmth of his best friend and co-pilot  pressed against his back. In that moment, he missed Bucky more than he missed anything else in the world.  

"Hello, Captain Rogers. Might I say what a pleasure it is to see you out of the ice again."  

Steve jumped about a foot off of the bed. The voice had come from the walls. And, after a moment, he recognized it. " _Jarvis_?"  

"The one and only, sir." The voice in his walls sounded faintly proud that it'd been recognized. 

“I thought you died?”

“Ah. Well. My body died, sir. Mr. Stark was adamant that my intelligence be retained.”

“So, you’re an AI now?” Steve had a million questions, such as how Tony had uploaded a man’s brain into a computer, and whether Howard had been working on it before his death. He was sure that Jarvis would be able to answer his questions; however, there were only so many astonishing revelations his brain could handle in one day, and he was starting to get a headache. “That’s… cool, I guess.”

“It’s pretty, ahem, _awesome_ , as Mr. Stark calls it,” Jarvis said, and Steve laughed.

"Wow." Steve blinked at the wall. "Do you still have a face?"  

"Not as such, sir, but I have no need for one. I only aim to serve. is there anything you may require?"  

Steve leaned back on his bed. "Not right now, Jarvis, thank you." He paused for a moment. "Actually, yes. What can you tell me about the deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Stark?"  

The information came pouring onto the walls of his bunk. Headline after headline, the obituary in the Times, and one moment of video footage where Steve watched their chopper plunge into the shore, over and over again. “Helicopter crash?” he mused. “But that doesn’t make any sense. Howard was the best pilot the Americans have. Was there ever an inquiry?”

“Colonel Phillips was furious when the police refused to investigate further. They cited insufficient evidence and dismissed the death of the Starks as an accident. The media suggested that Mr. Stark was drinking and lost control, but that was shut down within the week.” There was a touch of anger to Jarvis’ tone.

“Good,” Steve said, mind reeling. “Howard loved Peggy with everything he had. He would never have risked her life by drinking before flying a chopper.” Howard was better than that. “There was no sign of foul play with the chopper?”

“There were engine malfunctions, and a blade of the chopper was ripped off. I’m sorry, Captain, but Mr. Stark has only been able to uncover so much that Marshal Fury has encrypted. I’m still working to decrypt the rest.”

“Thank you, Jarvis.”

"There has been a package left for you in the closet. Director Hill dropped it off last night, while you were out in the bays."  

Steve rolled off the bed and padded to the closet in curiosity. "Do you know what it is?"  

"Given her alignment with Director Fury and her admiration of your adventures, I doubt that it's anything to be wary of, sir." Jarvis sounded amused. Steve made himself relax as he opened the closet door.  

The box had not been taped shut, and he opened its flaps carefully. What he found was most of his things, from before the ice, and it almost took his breath away. There were stacks of picture frames, and Steve didn't even have to go through them all to know that they'd be filled with photographs of the same four people, in varying combinations, during the years when the world had been at peace. Draped over the edge of the box was two sets of dog tags, and folded neatly on top of his shoes was a beaten green Army jacket with BARNES picked out in black on the lapel.  

"Personal effects," Steve said. "I didn't even think they kept these for this long."  

"I think Mr. Stark would have been keeping them away from the Marshal." Jarvis noted. "I'll leave you alone now, sir."  

"Thank you, Jarvis." Steve picked up the jacket and shook it out. There was a little dust in it, but it was warm and it still smelled like car grease and cigarettes and freshly baked bread. Steve pulled it on breathed in, reveling in the fading smell of his old life, of Bucky.  

 

* * *

 

"You know, there is such a thing called sleep." Natasha noted. Steve turned around to look at her, leaning against the column of the observation deck.  

"I've had enough sleep for a lifetime." Steve said. "Why do people seem to forget that?"  

"Because you don't let it show." Natasha said, and settled down next to him. "You use your ease and your sincerity to hide the fact that you're not all put together."  

_Wake up, Steve, get the fuck up!_ Bucky yelled frantically in his head. Steve closed his eyes. "I haven't been all put together for thirty-three years," he said quietly.   

There was a tremor in his voice. He fought it down as best he could, but Natasha seemed to catch it. "You miss him," Natasha noted.  

Steve nodded and swung his legs around so they hung over the edge of the rigging. "Every day," he said. "Like a piece of me was ripped out and now I can't find it."  

Natasha inched closer to him. "Tell me about him?" she asked.  

Steve looked up, staring out at Freedom Howl, standing tall and proud in front of him. "I was... small, as a kid." he said. "Bucky was huge. He was like a guardian angel, I guess. Used to pull me out of fights if I got in over my head, which was always."  

The first time Steve had noticed any effects of the 'roids, it had been Bucky who had pointed it out to him. "Stevie!" he could hear, in his head. "Steve, you're taller than me! Did you grow two feet overnight?"  

It had taken him a month to explain the process, and Bucky's joyful grins whenever he saw Steve had had an extra edge to them. Steve had never been able to name it, that strange feeling he'd always felt in the Drift, until he'd felt it himself.  

He had been  _afraid_. He'd been afraid that Steve wouldn't need him anymore, with the 'roids.   _Stupid jerk,_   Steve thought.  _He had no idea, clearly. Couldn't even see it in the drift, the little shit._

"You knew he was afraid." Steve didn't realize what he'd been saying aloud until Natasha spoke, and he turned to stare at her. She wasn't smiling.

"Of course I knew," Steve said. "Of course I knew he was afraid. We Drifted together. There are no closed doors in the Drift."  

"Except," Natasha said, "he didn't know you were in love with him, did he?"  

She didn't wait for an answer. She stood up and walked away, and left Steve to his own misery.  

 

* * *

 

The mess hall, at least, seemed unchanged. Steve ventured into it to find it full of Rangers, all laughing and joking in their various colored fatigues. May Parker smiled at him as he moved through the line, slipping him an extra biscuit as he passed her. The food seemed appetizing to him more and more as he stared at it, and he turned from the line eager to find a place to park while he ate.

"Hey, Cap!" Kate Bishop, in a bright purple drivesuit, stood on her table and waved to him. "Come sit with us!"

Steve, relieved that he didn't have to stand there like a middle schooler on his first day in the cafeteria, wove his way through the crowds to slide in next to her. "Hey, Kate," he said. “Hi, America. I thought you two were crew?”

“Sometimes we are,” America said. “We're on leave right now- I’ve been recuperating, but I’m all healed up now. Ours is the Smasher."

"It's a fucking giant, is what it is," Kate grinned. "And I love it. Makes me feel powerful."

"You should feel powerful, princess," America grinned, and they locked fingers.

"Are they back yet?" Kate asked.

"Carol and Kamala? Nah, still training. Do you know what they’re predicting for the next attack?”

They stared at each other for a long moment. Then...

"Cat4," America and Kate said together. 

"We haven't seen one in months." Kate grinned, and her fingers tightened around America’s. Steve realized his jaw was hanging open slightly and took a bite of his sandwich to mask it. He hadn't heard anyone finish each other's thoughts as completely as these two did in a long time. It was refreshing.

There was rapid movement and a girl with thick black curls and a lightning bolt on her shirt slid into the seat next to America. “Chips?” she asked delightedly, and Steve detected a bit of a New Jersey accent in her words. “Gimme. I’m starved.”

“Do as the girl says, America,” said a taller, older blonde. “Captain Carol Danvers,” she introduced to Steve. “I’m one of four people in this entire Dome who you don’t outrank.” Carol swung her blonde hair over one shoulder and offering a hand. Steve took it and felt rough skin under his palm. “Make sure you have a little respect, soldier.”

“You kidding?” Steve said. “I’d show respect even if you weren’t my equal. You look like you could snap my neck with one blow.” Carol smiled, looking pleased.

“That’s Kamala,” she said, and the girl with the lightning-bolt shirt grinned wolfishly at her. “We pilot Marvel Fortuna on the days when I’m not trying to talk the kids down off of ledges.”

“Hey, Wanda!” Kate said suddenly. “I didn’t know you had come back.”

Wanda was a powerful-looking woman with lips pressed tightly together. She settled herself delicately in a chair at the head of the table and all of the women turned expectantly to her. Steve held his sandwich closer to his mouth, content to remain silent and listen. "Pietro was injured in the last fight Xavier sent us on," she explained quietly, earning a chorus of concerned _awww's_. "We'll have to go on leave.”

“Which works, because I’m almost _off_ leave,” America said. “So Kate and I can jump back into Smasher and take your place.”

“Scooch,” said a new voice, and a pair of hips pushed Kamala further along her bench. In the space left settled a woman who looked so familiar that Steve had to blink a few times. “Sharon?” he asked.

“Hi, Steve.” Her eyes sparked with delight. “You remember me!”

“Could never forget Peggy’s niece, come on,” Steve grinned around his mouthful of sandwich.

“Look at you,” said a voice behind him. “Only been here a week and already you’re getting all the girls.”

“Clint!” Kate jumped up and tackled the newcomer in a hug. They could not have been more disproportionate- Kate was small and slim with long black hair, and Clint was tall and bulky with short-cropped hair. But he still grinned and swung her around.

“Katie!” he said. “Did you miss me while I was gone?”

“Not really,” she joked, and grinned. “Steve, this is Clint.”

“I found you on the ice,” Clint said proudly. “Still my finest moment. Kate, you’ll have to forgive me, I have to go find Nat before Rhodey tells her I’m here.”

And with that, Clint went loping off, duffel bag slung over his back.

“Clint Barton,” Kate said, jerking her thumb over her shoulder. “Sharpshooter. Natasha’s Drift partner. He took down a Cat3 in a rickety old rowboat with seven puppies in it, armed only with a bow and twelve arrows. It’s a better story when he tells it, and it ends with your ice block appearing out of nowhere.”

Steve glanced up at the timer countdown. “We due for another attack so soon?” he asked, surprised.

“They’re pretty sporadic,” Carol explained. “Sometimes we’ll have rapid fire events, sometimes we’ll go months without seeing any Kaiju at all.”

“The last rapid-fire events were almost a year ago now,” Kate said. “At least, that’s how long it’s been since Peter Drifted. He keeps telling me.”

“Peter’s not desperate to get back into a Jaeger, though,” Wanda remarked. “Not from what he’s been telling _me_.”

“He’d go back in if Steve was his partner, I bet,” Kate said. Steve ducked his head, taken aback.

“Hey, have you heard about the new telescope Xavier is trying to have built outside Malibu?” America asked.

“Only cause Billy won’t shut up about it,” Kate chuckled. 

Steve leaned forwards. “How powerful is it supposed to be?”

“The most powerful one in the world.” Kate said, eyes alight. “Fury is suitably pissed that he’s spending his money on ‘frivolities’, but half of the prof’s pilots are either kids who are still in school or total space nerds, so he’s willing to put the money down.”

“It is kind of useless, but hey, if it makes Billy happy, then everyone’s happy,” America said, glancing at Wanda, who smiled.

Kate blinked at Steve for a long moment. “Space nerd?”

“Space nerd,” he confirmed.

“Have you met Dr. Banner yet?” Steve shook his head and Kate’s eyes almost bugged out. “This is a travesty! I’ll be right back, ladies.”

Steve grabbed his sandwich just as Kate yanked him off his seat— she was surprisingly strong for her size— to drag him out of the mess hall.

 

* * *

 

“Hi, Captain,” Dr. Banner said, pushing his glasses up his nose and offering a hand. Steve took it, and found the handshake solid and warm. “Please, call me Bruce.”

Kate had shoved him into the lab and left with a wink, leaving Steve with a smaller man who had been hunched over his microscope for the better part of ten minutes before he’d noticed Steve standing there.

Steve nodded. “Tony told me you worked with gamma rays,” he tried.

“That was before the Kaiju,” Bruce chuckled. “These days, my work is purely theoretical. You can probably see how well that’s been going.”

“Are you the man responsible for the countdown timer in the mess hall?” Steve asked, realization dawning.

“There weren’t many calculations involved in that,” Bruce shrugged, although his ears were turning red. “They’re getting bigger and faster. It was just a matter of predictability. They are very predictable.”

“It’s brilliant,” Steve said. This was the type of man who Peggy would have wanted to wrap in a blanket and protect from the world, that much he knew. “So, you work with Tony?”

“Sometimes,” Bruce said. “More often, I work with Darcy. She may be a political science major, but she’s a good influence. I can see why Jane keeps her around.” Bruce was avoiding his gaze. Steve wondered if he had a little bit of a crush, but before he could ask, Bruce quickly switched gears. “No, Tony works on the Jaegers half the time. Ever since they installed the arc reactor in his chest he’s been working with it to make the Jaegers faster and stronger than they were before.”

“Natasha told me he didn’t work with the Jaegers.” Steve’s eyebrows furrowed.

“He builds little models.” Bruce walked around the lab table and showed him seven miniature Jaegers standing tall and proud on the lab table. “These are the only ones that survived the last beta test. The first one he ever built was a replica of Freedom Howl, you know. It’s lasted the longest.”

The door shot open and Jane tumbled into the lab, glasses perched on top of her head. “Board me!” she yelped, and Bruce reached back to flip one of the large chalkboards behind him to a clean, blank side.

“Steve, could you ask Hill for more chalkboards when you get a chance?” Bruce asked. “We’re running out of space on the ones we have, and Darcy hasn’t finished transcribing everything yet.”

“Of course.” Steve let his lips quirk up in a little smile as he watched Jane fervently scribble on the board. “What are you working on right now, Dr. Foster?”

“Shhhhh, no talking, only science,” Jane said, and continued scribbling.

“Before she came to the Dome, she was working on proving that an Einstein-Rosenthal Bridge could potentially exist,” Bruce explained. “Now she’s working on the Breach, and how we can destroy it. She’s gotten further than any other scientist has in many, many years.”

“He knows that because he’s been here since the start,” Jane said. “Steve, I’m sorry, but I really need peace. I’ll talk to you about this—,”

“Not a problem,” Steve said, and slowly backed out. Bruce mouthed sorry at him as he left.

 

* * *

 

Deep in the bowels of the Dome, as Steve discovered on his wander around, there was a Wall of Heroes— a place where fallen Jaegers and their pilots were commemorated. And so, it seemed, were Howard and Peggy Stark— their pictures were hung next to Colonel Phillips, who had died five years previously. 

Peggy, in the photograph, looked exactly the same as she had when Steve had known her. And then Steve recognized the picture, because he’d taken it at Coney Island during one of their shore leaves. Peggy had four year old Tony on her shoulders, and he was holding an ice cream cone that was bigger than his head in his hands. Steve had made the photo black and white, but he remembered the ice cream had been mint chocolate chip, which Howard had insisted his son try because “no son of mine can ever dislike mint chocolate chip!”

Tony had hated it. In the photo, he was about ready to take a bite. A moment after the photo was taken, he’d thrown the cone at Steve, who’d ducked to avoid ice cream getting on his camera. Peggy, however… Peggy was smiling wider than Steve had seen for a few years. He wondered, vaguely, if she’d ever smiled after Howler went into the ice. He wondered if she’d ever grieved for them.

“That your girl?” Steve jumped, having not heard Sam coming before he spoke right into his ear.

“Not mine, not while I was here,” Steve said. “But before I left for the army… well. I was never sure.”

When Bucky had met Peggy for the first time, about a year after Steve met her, she’d engaged him in a snark off that had had Steve’s grin growing wider and wider. And when she’d finally walked away, Bucky had sat back in his chair and said, “Damn, Stevie, you sure know how to pick ‘em.” Steve had always known that Bucky had loved her. Steve knew that there was no way anyone, man or woman, could meet Peggy and not love her. And sometimes, he had wondered if the same had held true for Bucky. It made the most sense.

“Natasha woulda loved her,” Steve said, instead of everything else. “They could have swapped tips.”

“I’m sure I would have loved her,” a new voice said, and Steve jumped as Natasha appeared from the shadows. “They’ve still got your picture up, you know,” she said. 

“Not every day a man gets to see his own memorial,” Steve said, earning a snort from Sam, and moved further down the line.

“That Bucky?” Sam asked, when they reached it.

Steve’s throat began to close. “Yeah, that’s him,” he said.

The tribute to Steve and Bucky had been combined. Instead of photographs, a small screen stretched across the length of the wall the photos would have taken, showing footage from one of the very last press releases. Steve and Bucky were both grinning, Bucky shaking his head at something Steve had said. 

Steve even remembered what it had been— “So, Captain Rogers, there anyone special in your life?” 

“Yeah,” Bucky had said. “Lucy.” 

“My dog,” Steve had supplied, at the same time that Bucky had said, “His dog,” and they’d both just started grinning like lunatics, and even as Bucky shook his head Steve had said, “This is why we’re drift compatible. We finish each other’s—,”

“Sandwiches!” Bucky had yelled, and Steve was grateful that the filmmakers had chosen to cut the clip right before Steve had burst into laughter.

“Hey,” Sam said, making Steve jump; Natasha laid a hand on his shoulder. "Stuck in your head again?"  

"Look, I should just warn you," Steve said, and shook his head to clear away the memories. "I've seen so much. I lost Bucky while we were drifting. There was a really terrible period when I was in my teens." Blood everywhere. The sound of someone sobbing. Howard yelling for an ambulance and the ghost of pressure against his face. "There's some bad stuff in the Drift. I understand if—,"  

"Do you know what I did after I got out of the army?" Sam interrupted. "The last thing I ever did overseas was rescue ten guys from a bunker we were trapped in. I lost my wingman in the process— and while I know that your co-pilot wasn't  your  wingman, not even close, I do understand how it feels to lose your best friend. And when I came home, I started working at the local VA, until they pulled me for piloting. I  was  helping other vets through their PTSD. I don't see anything different with your situation."  

"I thought it would be fair to give you a warning." Steve said.  

"I get that. But I've seen a lot worse than a  shellshocked  hero, trust me." Sam grinned, and it lit up the room. "And I've seen people pull through their trauma and move on with their lives. And if you can't, that's okay. I hear they're working on cloning miniature  Kaiju— you could get one as a therapy pet."  

"Ha ha," Natasha said. "Very funny. Do not let Tony hear you say that. You'll give him ideas."   She gently tugged on Steve’s shoulder. “Come on. Fury wants a proper Drift compatibility test, and we’d better give him what he wants. No point in lurking in places that bring back old memories.”

Gratefully, Steve let Natasha lead him away from the wall of heroes, Sam trailing behind them with one final look at the screen with Steve and Bucky’s laughter on it.

 

* * *

 

"You can't even see where the  Kaiju  ripped him out,"  Steve said quietly, staring right at the seam in the chest of Freedom Howl where they'd knitted the two halves of his Jaeger back together. 

"No, you really can’t," Sam said breezily, hefting his helmet in his hands. Steve had always known he liked Sam. 

"Wait," Steve said, and Sam paused in the motion of climbing into the left port. "You should take right." 

"You're kidding, right?" Sam said, raising an eyebrow. "You're pulling my leg?" 

"No," Steve said sincerely. "You’d be stronger there than I would be. Besides, I don't think I can take it, standing where I was when he—," 

"I get it," Sam said quietly. "You'll take his spot, then?" 

"Course I will." Steve stepped into the left rig and waited while the crews checked everything over. 

"We'll be  keeping  an eye on you, Cap," Gwen said. "Won't let  anything  happen." 

"Thanks," Steve said. "Truly. It's a relief.  No one paid attention to us in the days." 

Into the PONS stepped Peter and a girl Steve didn’t know. “Jessica Drew,” Peter introduced her. “She will be your flight captain this fine evening.”

“All right, boys, this is just a test to see how well you work together. No Kaiju to worry about.” Jessica said, and flipped down her goggles. “LOCCENT, you ready to go?”

“Fine and dandy, Drew,” Sharon’s voice said. “They good in there?”

“Clear,” Peter grinned, and gave LOCCENT a thumbs-up. “All right, boys, you’re good to go.”

“I’m older than you by, what, eight years?” Steve asked, folding his arms.

“If you forget the ice.” Sam pointed out.

“It’s only five, sir, discounting the ice.” Peter smirked. “Have a nice flight!”

“Initiating Neural Handshake,” called Fury, and the Drift closed around them. 

Steve’s drift had always been more sensory than true memory, and it was no  different today.  The taste of strawberries on his tongue. Sun beating on his open skin. The sound of Peggy's laugh, free and loud, that last summer before the war. 

And then, suddenly, it changed.

Steve was standing on a beach, watching as an overlarge bird swooped and soared in the sky. He could feel the air rushing past him, though his feet were planted firmly on the ground. It felt as though he were  flying.  

The overlarge bird stumbled when it hit open land, and Steve saw, to his surprise, that it was not a bird after all. Instead, Sam Wilson stood before him, wings  spread  to an impressive fifteen feet. 

“Wings?” Steve asked, in surprise, as the Drift once again became waves of blue memory. Sam nodded.  

“They were a prototype during my second tour. I was the pilot. I guess it was like… preliminary Jaeger testing? But they were single-rider only, and not, you know, giant robots. They shot us all down, before Fury and Banner stormed in and ended the war. Killed my wingman before they could get to us and, well, here I am.”  

“I’m sorry I got you roped back in.”  

“What? Fuck, no. Why are you apologizing? There’s no better reason to get back into war than Drifting with Cap Rogers in the Howler. Shut up.”  

“If you’re sure.”  

“I’m positive. I’d follow you anywhere.”  _Hell, no. The little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb not to run away from a fight. I'm following him._  Steve shook off the wave of bitterness that rolled over him and turned back to the Drift.  

Bucky gripping him by the shoulders. “Hey. Hey. _Steve_. Talk to me. What the fuck is going on?” 

The memory was so vivid, Steve had to shake himself to remind himself that it wasn’t real. 

“Nothing, Buck.” 

“Steve. You’re lying to me.” 

“I said, it’s _nothing_.” Steve had jerked back, ripping his arm from Bucky’s grip. Now, watching the memory as though it were a film, Steve could see the imperceptible emotion changes on Bucky’s face, and choked when he realized that Bucky looked like he was ready to cry. 

“Okay, Steve.” Bucky whispered. “All right.  Fine.  Don’t talk to me. But I’m here for you. You know that, right? I’m here… I’m with you  to the end of the line.” 

Bucky tying his bow tie, grinning at Steve and saying, “Big  big  night tonight, Steve. You should come— her friend’s nice. I told her good things about you.” 

“Maybe some other time,” Steve had said, picking at his overlarge maroon sweater. Bucky had frowned and there were those emotions again, flicking across his face before he picked up his hat and clapped Steve on the shoulder. 

Hands, gripping his face. The sound of Peggy crying and Stark swearing. Bucky leaning over him. “Steve. _Steve_. Wake up, Steve. Wake up, wake up, Steve, get the fuck up!” The pressure of a forehead pressed against his. “You can’t leave me now!” 

Dr. Erskine’s smile as he flipped through Steve’s file. “Hm. I think we have a lot to work on, but there is… potential here.” 

The exhilaration after the ‘roids  started to kick in— the feeling of being taller than everyone, the realization that things were good after all— the knowledge that came with realizing that Steve could join the army now, he could pass every test and he wouldn’t test any symptoms of mental illness at all .

The panic attacks that never stopped. Bucky’s hands, warm and firm, gripping his shoulders to help him shake through the feelings of alarm and terror that still overtook him. The bed, too small for two people and yet they made it work, spooning like they had as children. 

“Steve,” Sam’s voice said, and Steve’s head snapped around. Sam was watching him quietly, and Steve expected him to make some joke. Instead, he said, “Snap out of it for a bit,” Sam said. “We got a world to save, you know.” 

“Drift at 99% and holding,” Sharon said.

“Not even the full 100, Steve?” Sam teased. “What am I not allowed to see?”

Steve shook his head. “Forgot to lock the door,” he said, and Sharon let out a yelp.

“Well, there you are, 100 percent calibration. Congratulations, boys. Left arm?”

Just as Steve and Sam lifted the left arm, Sharon yelled, “Incoming! Incoming Cat2! Fuck, the models are holding, Fury, we’re going to be expecting rapid-fire events this week after all.” Four fingers of Howler’s upraised hand curved down and, over the comms, Steve heard Peter and Jessica burst into peals of laughter.

“Well, there’s no point in bringing them down now,” Fury sighed. “May as well go out. Get Barton and Romanov, get them to suit up. Carol, you listening?”

“Loud and clear, Marshal.”

“Get Stark and get in those choppers. We should take it down before it can come anywhere close to shore. Parker! Drew! Get Howl up on the rigging, we want her out of here as fast as possible.”

"You said you'd follow me anywhere," Steve said quietly. 

"Well, right now I have no choice, but yeah, always," Sam joked. 

They stood in silence, sharing the Headspace between them while they were hooked up to the chopper and started to fly. 

"Do you want to rename her?" Steve asked, quietly. 

"Nah," Sam said. "She's Howler. To give her another name would be... I can't think of a good analogy right now, but you get my drift."

Steve snorted, and then they were both laughing hysterically, Steve bent almost double. "That was... Wow. I didn't know you were capable of that, Wilson."

“Hey, guys, quit cracking,” Natasha said, into the coms, and a funny little smile spread across Sam’s face.

“Are you moving yet?” Steve asked.

“We’re in motion,” Clint’s voice came crackling through. “Ah, fuck, Stark! I thought you fixed this piece of shit intercom!”

“You’re using it wrong, Barton,” Stark said cheekily, and there was a feedback whine that made Steve wince.

“We all heard that, Stark,” Sam said sharply. 

The rest of the helicopter ride was silent. Steve was hyperaware of the Headspace, but there was more than that- there was a little bundle of emotions in the back of his head that signified Sam’s mind and memories. It wasn’t in the same place Bucky’s had been, but it was close enough to be disconcerting.

“Ha!” Clint said suddenly. “I’m not using it wrong— the hearing aids are interfering with the coms! I turned them off and boom— problem solved!”

“Except now you can’t gloat, because you can’t hear anything anyone is saying,” Sam said.

“Natasha’s translating for me, using single eyebrow raises and eyerolls.”

“He’s got Arrow giving him a transcript.”

“You’re no fun, Nat,” Clint whined.

“Release,” Carol said, and Howler fell heavily into the ocean. “All right, boys, you’re on your own now.”

“It’s a Cat2?” Sam muttered. Steve nodded. “We going to go at it army style or rely on tech?”

“Unless Tony messed with this thing, there is no fancy tech,” Steve said. “I wonder if they trashed the sword. That could be useful.”

“Are you guys in motion yet?” Clint asked.

Steve looked down at where their legs were moving in unison. “Nope,” he said. “We’re standing stock still in the middle of the ocean.”

Sam jerked and then narrowed his eyes at Steve. “You’re a cruel man, Charlie Brown,” he said, and Steve _laughed_.

“You’re nearing the site,” Carol said. “Be aware of your surroundings.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Clint said, sounding almost bored. Steve felt a spike of something unreadable in the Drift from Sam and gave him a quick glance in confusion. Sam was giving the coms a look of barely disguised annoyance and Steve reached out to him through the Drift. “You all right?” he asked, and Sam jumped.

“Yeah,” he said, and the feelings vanished. “I’m good. Not gonna chase the rabbit, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“There,” Natasha said sharply, and the Kaiju rose from the depths.

The thing was… huge. Not as big as other Kaiju Steve had faced, and certainly not as big as Leatherback, the Kaiju that had killed Bucky and sent Steve into the ice for fifteen years. But it was pretty damn sizable all the same.

“Atari,” Clint said suddenly. “Probably going to be just as hard to break as one of those things, too.”

Atari roared and crashed forwards, Steve and Sam moving in unison to slam a fist into its neck, and everything seemed to happen so fast Steve could have blinked and missed it.

Fighting with Sam was not like fighting with Bucky. It was quick and dirty, years of Sam defending himself on city streets mixed with Steve’s quick reflexes from doing the same. Steve and Bucky had always mixed that with the kind of fighting style people in the army used: standard and militaristic. Steve could feel some of Bucky’s moves bleeding into his own motions, could feel Sam following along, could imagine for a moment that Bucky was sharing their headspace as much as either of them were.

“This is so easy!” Clint was saying, as Steve leaned over to press a few buttons and unsheath their wrist sword.

“Ready?” Steve asked Sam, who nodded, and then focused on something else happening outside.

“Barton!” Sam snarled, and swung out, Steve blindly following his motions. The sword missed Atari by several feet, and instead a fist punched into the monster’s side, knocking it out of the path of the charging Arrow. The other Jaeger, unprepared and unable to stop in time, careened headlong into Howler’s outstretched arm, falling backwards almost comically into the ocean.

“What the fuck-?!” Clint sputtered.

“Later,” Steve snapped. “We’re going in pursuit.” Atari was headed straight for Hong Kong. Steve and Sam tried to stumble upright and almost lost their balance. Something dark and blurred shot past their line of sight- Steve caught a glimpse of a red star before the blur was gone.

“Did you see that?” he asked Sam, who stared at him.

“No. Kaiju? City? We got a world to—,”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, let’s go!” 

The dark blur slammed headlong into them. Steve managed to keep Howler from falling over, but they did stumble back a few steps. “Jesus— what is that?” Sam asked.

“Cat1?” Steve guessed. “It’s small, whatever it is.”

“Oh my God,” Sam breathed. “It’s a Jaeger.”

The Jaeger stood at about half of Howler's height, with a dark body save for one gleaming silver arm. When it swung at them, Steve and Sam instinctively reached to catch its hand and found themselves driven back almost a hundred meters. 

"Whoa!" Sam said, and the mystery Jaeger leapt away almost as soon as it had appeared. 

"Wilson! Rogers!" Natasha's voice crackled through. "Atari is about to make landfall!"

"Shit," Steve gasped, and turned around. It was going to be a long afternoon.

 

* * *

 

“You are going to get your ass handed to you in a moment,” Jessica said, as she pulled out wires.

“I think I can handle the Marshal—,”

“Not Fury,” Peter said grimly. “Fury just rolled his eyes. No, Clint’s gonna kill you. He’s got a strict sense of what should and shouldn’t happen during a Kaiju fight.”

Sam shrugged. “I can take him.”

Steve watched Sam and wondered, fleetingly, if Sam would have liked Bucky. Probably. Bucky liked people who stuck up for other people, and people who risked their own ass for someone else.

Sam was like Steve and Bucky rolled all into one. Maybe that was why they were so compatible.

“Rogers!” Sharon yelled from a balcony, jolting him from his thoughts, and came tumbling down the stairs to stutter to a halt. “Fury wants to see you.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Let me guess,” he muttered. “Asking why I didn’t stop Sam from—,”

“Hey!” Clint was storming over, Natasha heading over to the crews to discuss some malfunction with them. “Wilson! What the hell was that?”

“What, too much for you to handle?” Sam asked, folding his arms— Steve recognized the aggressive stance and tried to pull him back with a hand on his shoulder. Sam shook him off. “It’s called saving your life, you asshole. or did they not teach you to recognize that in the circus?”

“Clint,” Kate said sharply, but he held up a hand.

“It’s called self-sacrifice, Wilson.”

“It’s called not even thinking about your co-pilot. That’s what I’d call it, anyway.”

Clint’s eyes flashed dangerously. “I Drift with her,” he snarled. “You think she didn’t know what I was planning?”

“I think you took an unnecessary risk, and I was trying to save your ass." Sam shrugged. “I’ve lost too many good friends in the army.”

“This ain’t the army, _Falcon_ ,” Clint spat. “This is the fucking apocalypse. You can’t save one person and risk the lives of millions. Your wings ain’t gonna help much here. Only Jaegers.”

“Archery isn’t gonna help much either, you know.”

“That’s it. Get the wings. We’ll see which one of us is the better man here.”

“Boys, please don’t,” Kate said, and Steve stepped forwards to try and separate the two men, who looked ready to spit fire, when the entire Dome shook and a loud explosion took out the upper part of the ceiling.

“Holy shit!” Sharon yelped, and let out a scream of pain as dust rained around them and the shapes of everyone was lost in the cloud.

The rumbling didn’t cease, but after a long, terrifying moment, Steve straightened and waved the dust from his face. “Report!” he yelled. “ _Rangers, report!_ ”

“We’re good!” Kate yelped. “Wait, no, I think Sharon might’ve broken her leg. there’s a beam— Can someone give me a hand here?”

“I got you, Bishop,” Bruce’s voice said, clearly, and Sharon let out another cry.

“Clear over here, too,” Natasha said, and her hand landed gently on Steve’s arm. The dust was clearing and Steve found most of the crews standing around, shaken but more or less all right. A shudder of relief shook through him to the core.

The rumbling was only growing louder. “What the fuck is that?” Kate yelled over the cacophony.

“I don’t know, but it was huge,” Carol said, straightening from where she’d been trying to cover Jessica.“Where’s Kamala? Should we go out in this?”

“I don’t think it’s a Kaiju, Captain. I doubt your cannons will be much use,” Natasha said.

“You good?” Clint asked Sam, who nodded shakily, and untangled himself from the pretzel he’d gotten himself into trying to protect a man who was protecting him. “Get your wings.”

“Yeah, I think I’m gonna,” Sam said, and blinked at the newest addition to the Shatterdome— a hole about the size of Smasher’s head.

“No,” Bruce said quietly to Natasha, who made to follow them. “Those guns are prototypes. We can’t risk you getting hurt.” Steve blinked confusedly at them, and watched in surprise as Natasha took a step back, albeit reluctantly.

“Cap!” Tony shouted, and tossed him a familiar round shield. “We’re gonna need a little back-up here. Hold him off while I get Dad’s repulsors.”

And he was taking off again, just as the machine that had broken the Dome leapt through its hole and-

“Son of a fuck!” Clint yelped. “It’s a _Jaeger_!”

“Anything we recognize?”

“Not as such—,”

“Then we take it out,” Sam said, and fired as close to the shoulder joint as he dared. Clint shrugged and loaded his bow.

“Fire, fire!” Jessica yelped. “Peter, where are the webs?”

“Here!” Peter appeared from nowhere and tossed his sister a pair of obsidian guns with eight barrels. Jessica caught them expertly and fired at the Jaeger’s headgear. Instead of bullets, thin white filaments sprung from the eight barrels, weaving themselves midair into a web that stuck to the Jaeger’s face and made it stumble.

“It’s glowing!” Sam yelled, and shoved Clint towards Natasha, still lurking at the edge of the bay.

“Get down!” Clint yelled at LOCCENT, just as the Jaeger’s plasma cannon fired. However, since it was firing blind, it missed LOCCENT completely and instead fired directly at one of the Jaegers, taking out its entire leg in the process.

“Holy shit!” Clint and Sam said in unison, and fired. The Jaeger stumbled backwards again, shook its head, and spun back towards its hole, making to leap away. As it did, Steve caught a hint of the red star he’d seen in the day’s earlier fight— the one he thought he’d been imagining.

“That’s it!” he yelled, and flung his shield as hard as he dared. The Jaeger spun and caught the shield in its metal hand— and Steve paused in confusion.

Then the Jaeger was throwing it back, and it crashed into Steve’s chest hard enough to wind him. Tony yelped something unintelligible and there was the sound of the arc-reactor cannons powering up, and the Jaeger hopped out of its hole just as the repulsor fired into its leg, frying some circuitry there.

“That’s it,” Steve said, when he regained his breath, staring at Natasha. All around him, it was pandemonium. Sharon looked green, her leg twisted at a weird angle as Carol scooped her up to go to med bay. Maria and Fury thundered into the bays, looking as panicked as two dignified government agents could look. Rhodey actually did look frantic. Clint looked as though he were about to fall over from exhaustion— only Sam was keeping him upright, hand braced on his chest.

“What’s it?” Maria asked, coming to stand in front of Steve. “Did you recognize that Jaeger?”

“That’s the rogue that attacked Sam and I earlier today,” Steve said quietly.

“Are you sure?” Natasha asked, looking stricken. Steve nodded.

“It was the same star,” he said.

“What star?” Natasha asked sharply. Maria, looking troubled, shushed her.

“We’d best go to a conference room for this conversation.” she said solemnly.

 

* * *

 

"He's called Winter Soldier." Natasha said. "He's the only person known to drift alone for long periods of time without his brain bleeding out his ears. But no one knows who he is- because they're dead before he climbs out."   

"I— what?"   

"Winter Soldier is an assassin, targeting Jaegers and their pilots. There's no pattern, no order. He'll vanish for months, years even, and then he'll reappear again. It's like someone is ordering him to destroy the Jaegers, but no one actually knows."   

"He's a ghost story," Hill says quietly.   

Steve stared at the model— dark grey, save one gleaming silver arm with a red star painted on it. "I recognize this," he said quietly. "I've seen this star before. Before today, I mean."   

"Of course you have." Natasha said, quietly. "This is the same as the star painted on the side of Freedom Howl."   

Steve shook his head. "No, her star is white," he insisted. "Wait— It was in footage. The footage of the Starks’ helicopter crash. Just for a second.”

“I remember seeing that,” Hill said. “Something flashing by just before the helicopter went down. Fury tried to investigate further, but we were dismissed because there wasn’t enough evidence.”

“Let’s investigate it now, then. Jarvis?"   

"Captain?" The AI's voice came through the speakers.   

"Bring up the footage of the Stark accident again."   

"Certainly, sir." The video played against the wall of the conference room and they all watched silently as the helicopter flew across the Pacific. And then—   

"There! Pause." Steve could barely breathe. There, in the footage of Howard and Peggy's accident, was that same metal arm, that same red star. Steve felt as though he was going to be sick. Hill looked pale. Natasha was swearing under her breath in Russian.   

"This is undeniable proof." Hill said, finally. "We had been hoping that it wasn’t murder—,"

“But Howard Stark was too good of a pilot for it to have been an accident,” Steve finished. “And he would never have been drinking with Peggy in the chopper with him.”

“Especially not since she was pregnant at the time,” Hill said quietly, and Steve’s stomach dropped out. “Tony doesn’t know. We tried to tell him, but he made it very clear he wanted nothing to do with us after their deaths. He was insistent. We let it go.”

“What do we do, then?” Steve asked, coldness seeping through his veins. “We can’t let a murderer run loose through the oceans. He could wreck one of our Jaegers next.”

“He already has,” Maria said thickly, and Steve froze. “Not one of ours, no, I’m sorry,” she said quickly, “apart from Howard and Peggy, neither of whom Drifted. But the Winter Soldier is responsible for a number of Dome shutdowns over the last ten years. There are only four left now.”

“Four?” Steve gasped. “There were three times that number when I started, and even more when I went under.”

“Carol knows more about the politics than I do,” Hill replied. “This is what I know. Half of them merged with other, more powerful Domes in bigger countries. And then some of those lost their Jaegers to the Soldier. Now all we’ve got left is in Malibu, Sydney, here, and Juneau. And Sydney’s due to merge with Xavier’s crews soon.”

“We need to bring him in, then,” Natasha said thoughtfully. “Make him answer for his crimes.”

“Leave that to me,” Steve said gravely, and turned to stalk from the room.

 

* * *

 

LOCCENT was subdued. Gwen was idly tapping away at the keyboards, filling Sharon’s position while she remained in medical. Steve caught a guy in the corner who looked to be playing Galaga and smiled in spite of himself. Director Fury was pacing back and forth.

“Captain,” he said gruffly. “So, our mystery Jaeger is the Winter Soldier.”

“Yes, sir,” Steve said quietly.

“Well, mother fucker.” Fury leaned heavily against the table. “I was hoping it would never come down to this.”

“What?” Steve asked, and something began to boil deep in his gut.

“The rumors of the single-pilot Jaeger program were true.” Fury looked up. “When you take nothing into the Drift, you can Drift with anyone. The theory was that if you had nothing to take into the Drift, you could Drift alone with no neural strain. Of course, that plan turned sour. People realized they could be used as weapons. There was a war. Bruce could tell you about how it ended. Where’s your Drift pilot?”

Steve glanced around. “I’ve no idea,” he admitted.

“Go find him,” Fury muttered, rubbing his temples. “I’m going to need him for this one.”

Steve exited LOCCENT only to see Sam at the end of the hallway, speaking quietly to Natasha with both of her hands clasped between his. “Sam?” he called, and they both jumped guiltily, Natasha yanking her hands from Sam’s grip as though she’d been burned. “Fury wants to talk to you,” he said, and looked between the two of them. “Was I interrupting something?”

“Nah,” Natasha said. “I’ll talk to you later?” she asked Sam, who leaned over and kissed her forehead in answer. She fled the scene almost as quickly, and Steve gave Sam a puzzled glance.

“What was that?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Sam said lightly, and followed Steve back into LOCCENT. Steve noticed that Tony and Bruce had entered while he’d been talking to Sam— or had they been there all along? He couldn’t be sure anymore.

“Good,” Fury said. “You worked at a VA for a time, right?”

“Yes,” Sam said, shifting uneasily and folding his arms. “Why?”

“We’re bringing Peter in to Drift again, against my better judgement,” Tony snapped, and rolled his eyes.

“We need another line of defense, especially with the Maximoffs out,” Fury snapped. “I’m trying to be as reasonable about this as I can, but the truth is we need more Jaegers!”

“Peter was a Ranger?” Steve asked.

“Age to Drift is 17 now, Cap,” Sam said. “It was an allowance granted to Shatterdomes after Harlem.” Bruce tensed and Sam glanced at him. “Not your fault, Doc.”

“Pilots were beginning to be few and far between, and more kids were joining up than older men.” Tony said. “They were eager to fight, and they proved to be better at Drifting with multiple people than the adults were.”

“Six months ago,” Fury said, “we had a triple attack of three category 4 Kaiju. We had to send out all of our Jaegers and bring most of our pilots off of shore leave for reinforcement. We lost many good pilots out there. Finally, desperate, we sent out the kids— all of them who were old enough, anyway. Billy Kaplan and Tommy Shepard, the twin sons of Wanda Maximoff; Teddy Altman and David Alleyne, both of whom left after the events had ended, back to Malibu; Kate Bishop and America Chavez, on Kate’s first time out of the Dome since the death of Cassie Lang; and Peter Parker and Wade Wilson.”

“Wade had seemed to pass every neurological test we gave him,” Bruce said quietly. “He’d gotten really good at masking the things that were wrong with him.”

“He joined up for good reasons,” Fury said, shaking his head. “They peaked at 90% and held. We needed them out and Peter promised he could handle it.”

Steve blinked. “What happened?”

“What do you think?” Fury’s smile was cold. “Wade had an episode mid-fight. Peter was unconscious for thirty hours— May was beside herself with fear. The worst part was that Wade didn’t even seem apologetic about it.”

“Peter has been out of commission ever since,” said Tony, “and Wade hasn’t set foot in a Jaeger. Kid vanished a couple of weeks ago— I think he’s headed to Juneau, but we can’t be sure.”

“You wanted to see me, sir?” Peter asked, appearing in the doorway, and Fury turned around.

“Out of commission until now,” Fury said, and Peter tensed up. “Suit up. You’re going to test drift compatibility.”

Peter scoffed. “Yeah, sure. Who’s my copilot, then? Wade’s not here, and if he was I’d tell you to kiss my ass anyway.”

“She’s right there,” Fury said, and his expression never changed. Peter turned around and blanched.

“Hi, Pete,” Jessica Drew said, pulling her black hair into a ponytail. “Am I better than Wade?”

“Yeah, but aside from that,” Peter said, after a long moment. He turned back to Fury, anger clouding his features. “She’s not of age.”

“My birthday’s next week,” Jessica said, eyes flashing.

“You’re not seventeen _right now_!” Peter snapped back.

“And what would you have me do?” Fury lifted his arms. “Bring Pietro out of the medbay and make him Drift again?”

“You’ve done that four times now, sir,” Rhodey said, not looking up from the computer. Steve jumped, having not known he was there.

“That is besides the point, Corporal.”

“Sir, with all due respect, I don’t agree with this either,” Steve said.

“Rogers, do not test me today. He doesn’t even need to do anything. We’re just testing them because we need an extra line of defense, especially with how close the events are getting again. No more arguing. Go.”

With those words, he swept out of the room.

LOCCENT was silent for a long moment. Finally, Jessica said, “Do you really not want to Drift with me?”

“No, that’s not it,” Peter sighed. “I’m just worried about you.”

“You’re always worried. Stoppit.” Jessica grinned and punched Peter playfully on the arm.

“I don’t like this at all,” Steve muttered to Tony, who nodded his agreement.

“Just be careful in the Drift, okay?” Peter asked Jessica. “I don’t know what’s left over in there from the last time I tried to Drift with Wade. Don’t chase the rabbit.”

“Ignore everything that might have a connection to Wade Wilson. Got it.” Jessica paused, and then looked at Sam. “Is he related to you?”

“Get in the PONS,” Steve said. To Tony, he added, “How many times did Peter Drift with Wade?”

Tony closed his eyes, which was not a good sign. “Four times,” he said at last.

“ _Four_?!” Sam yelped. Gwen turned to look at him curiously.

“Yeah,” Tony said, rubbing his eyes. “The first time wasn’t too bad, but the last time… Well, you heard Fury’s story. Someone should have screened Wilson better, anyway. A person with as much wrong with him as he did shouldn’t have even been allowed near the Dome.”

Steve took a step back like he’d been slapped. “You really think that?” he asked. Tony turned to face him.

“The man had schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder, or something like that. There’s a difference between that and depression, and you of all people should understand that. You’d better go, before Fury gets pissed,” he added, and roughly shoved Steve away.

“What did he mean by that?” Sam asked. “Steve. What the hell did he mean by that? Do you… Do you have depression?”

“I did,” Steve said dryly. “They made it go away, but now I think it might be back with the PTSD. I really, really do not want to talk about it.” The sound of Peggy crying as Howard cursed him out. Steve shook the memory away. _Don’t chase the rabbit._ “What’s done is done. I’m here now. That’s what’s important. If it gets really bad, I’ll stop Drifting before anything like what Tony just told me happens to us. But right now, all I want to do is bring down the son of a bitch who killed Howard and Peggy.” 

 

* * *

 

“Are we clear to test?” Fury asked Gwen, who gave him two thumbs up in place of speaking. Steve supposed it was for the best, given the donut she’d shoved in her mouth to leave her hands free to begin the sync.

“I still don’t like this, sir,” Peter’s voice came through.

“I told you, this doesn’t mean you’re gonna go out and fight again,” Fury said. “This is just a safety precaution. If we do need you, I want to make sure you two are fully compatible before we make you Drift.” Tony looked over at the Marshal, and if Steve wasn’t mistaken, there was a look of gratitude on his face.

“Initiating handshake,” Hill said, and there was the sound of the Red Spider firing up.

The Spider was a smaller Jaeger, inky black with red lightning bolts painted on its arms. But what it lacked in height, it made up for in width- its arm span had to at least have been the same as the height of Black Arrow. It needed the extra girth in the middle to make up for such long arms.

“100 percent and holding,” Gwen sighed, and Jessica laughed in glee, over the coms.

“Peter, your cannons are powering up,” Pepper said. “What’s going on?”

“Pete, what the fuck—,” Jessica began, and cut off.

“Shut them down,” Fury snapped, and an alarm began to blare.

“Cat3, sir,” Gwen announced, and Rhodey barked out a curse under his breath.

“You wouldn’t send them out,” Hill said to Fury, as Pepper and Gwen wrestled with the controls for the Spider.

“No,” Fury said, shaking his head. “I wouldn’t. Rogers! Suit up. Find Wilson and Barton, while you’re at it.” 

Steve sighed, glancing over at Natasha. She just shrugged.

 

* * *

 

“Explain to me how we ended up here again?” Steve asked Sam.

“A Cat3 attacked while we were testing Peter and Jess— duck, Sam— and now we’re fighting again instead of trying to find the Winter Soldier?” Steve said.

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Sam muttered. “Sword?”

“Probably, yeah. Try the cannons into its ugly maw first. What’re we calling this one?”

“Freddy fucking Fazbear,” Clint said. “Did you ever play Five Nights at Freddy’s? I don’t know what the fuck happened in that game, but it was fucking terrifying. So is this motherfucker.”

“It does kind of look like a bear,” Kate said.

“Yeah, see? Exactly.”

“Shut up for a second, Hawkguy,” Sam said, and fired the cannons. “Okay, continue.”

“Nah, I’m done.” Clint said. Fazbear roared, blue plasma running from where its jaw used to hang— and suddenly a silver sheen flashed by.

“Soldier sighting!” Sam yelped. “Fuck— what are we supposed to do?”

“Sword!” Steve yelled, and slammed his hand down on the button as hard as he dared. 

“Let’s kill this son of a bitch and bring down the Soldier too!” Sam laughed, and they swung the sword as hard as they dared, slicing the head clean off. Steve hesitated for a moment, recalling Bucky’s near crazed laughter during one of their last Kaiju fights.

People were not meant to fight Kaiju for such a long time. Steve desperately wanted the war to end— maybe then the ghost Drift would stop.

In his hesitation, he had missed that the Winter Soldier had paused for a moment, staring at Howler's frame. Then, it lifted its arms. The left one began to glow blue.

"Plasma cannons," Steve whispered dazedly, as Sam yelled, "Down!"

Howler dropped and Steve snapped back to full awareness, the Headspace fizzling back around him. The bolt grazed the hull, chipping several sheets of metal off. Tony was cursing up a storm in Steve's ear.

“How the fuck did that asshole get my tech?”

“I don’t know, Tony, why don’t you ask him yourself?” Steve yelped, as he and Sam rolled Howler over. “Why does this thing feel heavier than usual?”

“Because we’re on the ground and have to get back up, come on!” Sam yelled. “Brace!”

One huge hand braced  against the island shore and Steve and Sam staggered Howler to her feet, wobbling slightly in the breeze. Steve took the momentary lull to get a good look at the Winter Soldier, which came to approximately the chestplate of Freedom Howl in height. The left arm was smoother and shiny silver, unlike the rest of the body, which was nearly black with soot and ash.

“Take out its power grid,” Steve said, and Sam nodded and slammed his hand on the button. “The pilot’ll emerge from the helmet and we can go in pursuit.”

“Not in this thing,” Sam said. “If we’re goin’ in pursuit, you’re taking the shield and I’m getting my wings and we’re doing this old fashioned style. Hand to hand. I’m not risking accidentally trampling this asshat to make it easier.”

“Sounds good to me,” Steve said. “Fire the cannons?”

“Firing,” Sam grinned, and they fired their fully charged cannons at the Winter Soldier. Its whirring chest circle died and it collapsed forwards, smoke billowing.

"We took it down,” Steve yelled, and there was a faint cheer from the Dome. “Sam, go, go, go!" 

The disconnect seemed to take far too long. Every moment they spent was extra time for the Winter Soldier to get away. Steve finally tore himself loose and bolted to grab the old shield from the army days. "Hold on!" Sam yelled, and slung on a strange-looking pack before they kicked the chest of Freedom Howl open to storm out after the pilot.  

Whoever this guy was, he was fast. Steve saw the glint of metal and ducked, before the knife could make contact with his head. He pitched his shield as hard as he could manage— and the Winter Soldier turned around and caught the shield in his one metal hand.  

"Holy shit," Sam gasped, as the soldier tossed the shield aside and threw the first punch. "Whoa!"  

It was clear that this was Steve's fight, and it was the tightest fight that Steve had ever been in. Tighter even than the rod fight between him and Sam— almost as tight as the fights he had once had with Bucky. Every move Steve made, the Soldier was evading, and Steve had to dodge fast to avoid the metal fist and the knife that suddenly flicked out of nowhere and sliced at his face. Whoever this guy was, Steve was sure they'd be drift compatible.  

Steve managed to get one good blow in before he felt a stabbing pain in his leg and he yelled out in pain. In the lull, the Winter Soldier locked an arm around his throat and held. He couldn't breathe. In anger, he scrabbled backwards, attempting to claw backwards at his assailant's face, just like he'd done in the days before the 'roids. His fingers caught on metal and he pulled as hard as he dared, ripping the mask off the Winter Soldier's face in the process. He took another wild swing and felt his fist connect with flesh.   

The hold on his neck released. The two men staggered apart, Steve almost collapsing onto his injured leg. Steve craned his neck around to gauge the identity of the Winter Soldier and felt his heart stop beating. The Winter Soldier had whipped his head around, and at the sight of his face Steve found that he couldn't breathe— the whole world was narrowing to this one single point, this face staring at him that he knew so well— this face that he had last seen staring at him in the chest of a Jaeger before a  Kaiju  had ripped them apart.   

"Bucky?" he breathed. The air was roaring around his ears.   

"Who the fuck is Bucky?" the Winter Soldier growled, and Steve felt… something… crack. Then the pilot leapt off the cliff, and Sam yelled something and took off, his wings spreading impressively behind him.   

Steve felt his knees buckle. The last thing he heard before he hit the ground was Natasha cursing at him in Russian.   

 

* * *

 

Steve’s vision returned all at once and he jarred awake gasping, blinking away the image of the moon. “Steve?” someone said, and Tony and Rhodey were suddenly in his line of vision, each holding onto a shoulder.

“Easy there,” Rhodey said quietly, helping Steve to sit up properly. “Dr. Foster’s not done yet.”

“It was a deep wound, captain,” Jane said, from where she sat between his legs. “You’re going to need to take it easy for a while.”

“Have I ever mentioned how perfect your stitches are?” Tony asked, looking over her shoulder. Jane blushed.

“I thought you were doing research on the Einstein-Rosenthal bridge?” Steve said fuzzily, eyebrows furrowed.

“That was my main research, yes, but I was working as a paramedic to pay the bills,” Jane admitted, looking pink. “When Kaiju made landfall, sometimes they needed me to stitch up wounds and such. I got good at staying calm under pressure.”

“Which is why Darcy tased Thor even while you were trying to offer him something to eat,” Rhodey snorted, and Jane bobbed her head.

“I was pretty scared of the guy too. I mean, he showed up in full-plate armor and blood running down his face— but not the kind of blood I’d ever seen before. So I’m trying to calm him down, because he’s screaming to the high heavens about something, and Darcy freaked and then boom— she’s tased him.” Jane shook her head. “It happened so fast.”

“Don’t touch that,” Tony snapped at Steve, who’d been pulling at his IV. “Have you never been in a hospital before? Don’t touch the IV.”

“I’m almost done, I promise,” Jane said. “Then you can go see your friend. Is he a friend?”

Steve’s mouth went dry. “He’s here?” he asked Tony, clinging onto Tony’s arm.

“Yeah, Sam got him.” Tony shrugged. “I dunno what he said to him, but he went complacent immediately. We’re not holding him, or anything. We’re just trying to figure out his trigger words so he can’t cause a problem, and then we’re going to figure out why he’s wearing my godfather’s face, and who made him that way.”

“It’s Bucky,” Steve said. “I swear it is, no one has the tech to steal anyone’s face. And his fighting style— he fights just like Bucky did.”

Tony let out a shaky breath. “I want you to be right, I do,” he said quietly. “But I don’t want to get my hopes up and turn out to be wrong.”

Sometimes Steve forgot that Tony had been so close with Bucky. Sometimes Steve forgot that the little kid who’d thrown his ice cream cone at him had grown up in the middle of an apocalypse and had lost most of his family to something that no one had been able to predict. Steve slowly reached out and took Tony’s hand in his, squeezing it in a poor attempt at comfort. But Tony gave him a tight smile, and Steve hoped it would be enough.

“All right, Cap, take it easy, now,” Jane said, pulling a bandage tight around the stitches. “I’ll help you down to the room— they want me to take a look at him myself. Not many other medics here, thank you to the Chinese government for not helping after America cut our _fucking_ funding —,” Tony laid a hand on Jane’s shoulder and she sighed. “Sorry. Not many others here, except Bruce, and he won’t go in yet.”

Steve winced as he put weight on his right leg. “We going?” he asked Jane, who nodded, and offered him her shoulder to lean on, which he accepted gratefully.

“They’re going to bring in Billy’s mother, Tony,” Rhodey said, after several long minutes of silence. “Dr. Kaplan, I mean, not Wanda. Sam’s good, but he’s no licensed psychologist.”

“That’s good,” Tony said. “She’ll be good for him, I think. Having someone to talk to who looks like a civilian— and a mother, at that— instead of a doctor or a soldier.”

The walk to the interrogation rooms was short. When Jane opened the door to the observation area and ushered him in, it was to see the room had been set up like a doctor’s office. Bucky was seated on an examination table, and two doctors were in the corner, watching him with wariness in their eyes.

“What happened?” Jane gasped.

“They tried to touch his arm,” Bruce said, shaking his head. “They’re idiots. Go help them out a little bit?”

Jane banged the door into the wall on the way out of the room and Steve stepped closer to the window, pressing a hand to the glass. Bucky. His hair was longer and looked unkempt, and his eyes were dead and his jaw was clenched tighter than Steve had ever seen it before, but it was Bucky through and through. Seeing him again, alive and in the flesh, made his heart hurt.

"I don't know if any of him is left in there, Steve."  Bruce said, shaking his head.  

Steve had to grip the edge of the window with both hands to keep himself from falling. “I don’t care. He's my best friend.”  

“He's killed twenty Jaeger pilots.”  

That gave Steve pause. “He spoke Russian over the coms,” he said, finally. “Bucky didn’t know Russian— he’s been under their control.”  

“Even if he does remember, you are aware of what all of that will do to him?” Bruce folded his arms. “Knowing that he killed pilots, pilots that he knew and worked with. Knowing that he killed Howard and Peggy— it could shatter him, Steve.”  

“I can help him,” Steve insisted. “Sam can, too— right, Sam?”  

Sam looked troubled. “I’m good with PTSD, Steve, but  _shit_. This is some high-level stuff.”  

Bucky looked complacent on the table, eyes flicking warily at the instruments but otherwise completely obedient to everyone’s commands. His face was blank, but Steve stared at it anyway, drinking in every line and contour that he had seen in the Drift for so long.  

“He looks older,” Sam mumbled.  

“He was a year older than me,” Steve replied. “But I think he’s been out of the ice for longer than I have. He’s probably got several years on me, now.”  

Natasha burst through the doors at that moment, staring at the window where the doctors were working on Bucky just as he jumped. Clearly, he had not been expecting Jane’s gentle touch on his good arm. Steve noted they were now steering clear of the metal one— he could see the ugly scar where it had been hastily stitched into place and didn’t blame Bucky one bit for attacking people who touched it.  

Bucky shook his head suddenly and Natasha reached to turn on the microphone. Steve felt his knuckles pop.  

“—en what should I call you?” Jane was asking calmly. She was good under pressure, Steve thought, and was grateful that she was the one handling the situation.  

Bucky thought for a long moment and then, quietly, mumbled, “James, I guess.”  

Steve breathed a long sigh and Bruce looked at him curiously. “That’s his real name,” he explained. “James Buchanan Barnes. He remembers _something_ , at least.”  

“All right, James.” Jane gave him an easy smile. “I’ll just get Dr. Banner in here to talk to you, all right? We won’t make you do anything you don’t want to do.”  

Bucky— Steve was never going to be able to think of him as  _James_ ,  no matter how much he didn’t remember— looked absolutely flabbergasted that Jane was being so kind, and watched her leave the room with a wary look on his face.  

Steve unclenched his hands from the windowsill and slowly left the room. There was nothing more that he could do. To his surprise, Natasha followed him.  

"I need to speak to you," Natasha said, and beckoned Steve down a darkened hallway. Uncertain, Steve followed.  

Natasha checked both ways before she showed Steve into a room with only a table and two chairs to furnish it. She shut the door behind her and, when she turned to face him, looked grave. "I knew him," she said quietly. "Bucky. I didn't know who he was at the time, but I knew him. We were... we were in the Red Room together."  

Steve felt dizzy. "The Red Room?"  

"I can't tell you the whole story. I was a child when you plunged into the ice, and I was seventeen when a Jaeger stormed the complex and took me away from the madness. Bucky and I met when he first started solo assassinations- they didn't understand why his mind could take the strain, but no one else's could. He was... He was like a mentor to me. I liked to think that I was the only thing that could ground him." She smiled ruefully. "The last time I saw him, he told me that he loved me. That was the end of that." She shrugged. "They sent me to Moscow and I never saw him again. Until now."  

"Do you think he would recognize you?"   

Natasha shook her head. "If missions triggered his memories, they'd wipe them and put him in  cryo. I would expect that the deaths of Howard and Maria Stark would have meant a complete reset. I can always see. I doubt he would have the same feelings for me, and I know that while I still love him, it's the love a child felt for the one good thing in her life. I'm not that person anymore."  

 

* * *

 

“I get my own room?” Bucky asked, and he looked so much like a lost child that Steve’s heart broke.

“Sure,” Fury said. “So long as you promise to not kill anyone while you’re here, you get the run of the place.”

Bucky said nothing. Fury sighed. “I suppose that’s better than nothing,” he said, and turned to leave. “Hey, Barton? Get your dogs out of LOCCENT.”

“Understood, sir,” Clint said, and opened the door. Six balls of golden fur ran underneath his feet and straight to- “No!” Clint yelped, but the puppies had already leapt straight for Bucky.

Steve shot forwards, but Bucky wasn’t doing anything, just letting the puppies sniff at his arm. Then, another one appeared, scrabbled on the floor, leapt clear over Steve’s propped up leg, and landed on Bucky’s chest, licking his face all over and wagging her tail.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Fury said, as Bucky slowly smiled. It was awkward and there was no life behind it, but it was a real smile and Steve’s heart pounded a little faster when he saw it.

_Maybe_ , he thought, _just maybe, everything will be okay now._

 

* * *

 

“Numbers,” said Jane Foster, “never lie.”

“Numbers are completely different from cold, hard facts,” Tony shot back. Jane rolled her eyes.

“The second attack recorded happened within, what, six months of the first? Enough time for the cities to prepare, but not enough for the Jaeger program to get off the ground. As the years went by, the attacks got more and more frequent. Then, we had a full week of rapid fire events, one every six hours or so, and then nothing for a month. Then they slowly started to build in frequency again. And the cycle continues. The last attack happened within two days of the one prior. That one happened within a single day. With these kind of numbers, we should be expecting an attack within the next _few hours_. Are we prepared?”

“We are,” Marshal Fury said. Steve folded his arms and leaned back in the chair Jane had all but shoved him into upon his arrival, raising an eyebrow at Fury. Bruce looked nonplussed.

“Really,” he said, near deadpan. “Steve’s injured, Pietro’s injured, Peter and Jessica haven’t even tested compatibility yet, Clint’s getting more and more reckless for fuck-all reason, and you’re saying we’re prepared?”

Fury said nothing. Steve studied Jane’s board and then glanced at where she stood, nervously biting her lip, hair swung up and thick rimmed glasses on the end of her nose.

“It’s been twenty-two years,” he said. “What are they waiting for?”

“That’s the thing,” Bruce said. “Numbers are all well and good, but the clear fact of the matter is that we have no idea what these fuckers want. They’re just coming, and they’re taking their sweet time doing it. And— look at this.” He stood up from Steve’s leg and fished around behind his desk, coming up with two long, pinkish entrails. Steve winced. “This one is from Atari, the one you and Sam fought, right, in that first away. And this one is from Epoch, which the Maximoff twins brought down over eight years ago. But they have the exact same DNA. I don’t think these monsters are here for any reason other than nefarious purposes. I think—,”

“Someone cloned them for the express purpose of ravaging worlds.” Steve finished. Bruce nodded.

“Their DNA matches that of early dinosaurs. If only there was a way of figuring out what the _hell_ was going on on the other side of the Breach.”

Steve spotted Tony’s expression. “No,” he said firmly. “Whatever you’re thinking, Tony, the answer is no.”

“I don’t even think I wanna know what crossed your mind.” Fury lifted a hand as Tony opened his mouth to say something. “The answer’s no, Stark. Your tech is more important than any stupid risk you wanna take.”

Tony’s jaw snapped closed with an audible click. Fury nodded and swept from the room.

Steve slowly stood, tested out his leg, wincing as pain stabbed through the wound only to fade to a dull throbbing. “Thank you, Bruce,” he said quietly. “Tony, don’t do anything stupid, all right? Please?”

 

* * *

 

“Do you think he’s still in there?” Steve asked bluntly, falling backwards onto the couch. Rebecca watched him as he inspected his fingernails, trying to come up with the words. “Do you… Do you think we could get him back?”

Rebecca pulled off her glasses with her hand. “I don’t know, Steve,” she said, after a long pause. “There’s always a chance. You say he remembers his name?”

“So far, just the first,” Steve admitted. “But if we gave him the time to remember the rest—,”

“You could just end up with a shell of him,” Rebecca warned. “He’s done a lot of unforgivable things.”

“It wasn’t him,” Steve insisted. “It wasn’t— Bucky would _never_.” Bucky was the golden child. Parents across Brooklyn had known his name and his face, knew that if they saw him around their kids would be okay. People trusted Bucky to stay out of trouble, to do the right thing. Bucky would never have killed Howard and Peggy of his own volition.

“You’ll forgive him,” Rebecca pointed out, “but what about Tony?” Steve’s stomach dropped out. “He’s bitter about all of this. You already know he left the Shatterdome because of his parents’ deaths. He only returned to prevent more. How does he feel about all of this?”

“I’m… not sure.” Tony, more than anyone else in the Dome, was likely to hold a grudge. “I hope-,”

“This isn’t about Tony,” Rebecca said quickly. “I shouldn’t have even brought him up. How do you feel about all of this? Knowing that Bucky is alive?”

Steve paused for a moment, trying to recollect his thoughts. “It’s like…” he began, and stopped again. “It’s like someone tore out a part of my heart, when I woke up. And so I learned how to live with half a heart, and even while my heart’s been slowly healing someone tried to stuff the original piece back in _backwards_.”

“Are you happy that he’s alive?”

Steve exhaled. “Yes,” he said. No matter what Bucky’s mental state was, Steve was exceptionally glad that he was alive.

There was a knock on the door and Pepper poked her head in. “Sorry,” she said apologetically, “but I really need Sam, and they’re finally going to finish Peter’s Drift test, and that’s happening in ten minutes, so if I were you I would get down to LOCCENT.”

“Why do they need me again?” Steve grumbled, flopping a hand over his eyes.

“Because you know more about Drifting? Don’t ask me, I’m just the messenger.” Pepper sighed and left the room.

“We can pick up later, right?” Steve asked.

“Actually,” and here Rebecca hesitated, and Steve’s stomach dropped out. “I’ve been called off to Juneau,” she explained. “Something happened to Johnny Storm and his sister’s worried. I'll be video-linking with James sometimes, but I’m not sure when I’m going to be coming back.”

Steve resisted the urge to say _But what about me?_ He settled for, “I’ll keep an eye out for your son.”

“Thank you,” Rebecca said, “but take care of yourself, first. There are plenty of people here who’ll look after Billy. Let your first priority be yourself and your mental state.”

 

* * *

 

Steve found Sam leaning against a wall, quietly talking to Clint. It was the first time Steve had seen Clint look serious about anything, and he hated to interrupt them, but Pepper really wanted to see him about something, and they needed to be in LOCCENT in five minutes for Peter's drift compatibility test. "Sam?" Steve asked hesitantly. 

Sam jerked back from Clint, and Steve belatedly realized that their hands had been joined in some weird absentminded thumb wrestling contest. "Steve!" Sam said in a higher voice than normal. "What's going on?"

"Peter's Drift test," Steve jerked his head towards LOCCENT. "And Sharon wants to talk to you."

Sam looked at Clint, who sighed. "All right, I'll survive without you for a few hours. But you better report at 2200 hours."

"Yes, sir." Steve was about ninety-five percent sure they were flirting with each other. He decided that it was best to ignore it if at all possible. 

“So,” he said, as they were walking away. “You and Nat?”

Sam shrugged. “She’s being a little aloof,” he said lightly. “I’m not sure it’s going to work out, to be honest. What did Sharon want to talk to me about?”

“Not sure. She just barged into my session with Dr. Kaplan and said she wanted to talk to you. Maybe she thought you were with me?”

“Why would I end up in the same room as you and your shrink?” Sam rolled his eyes. “Don’t answer that. I don’t want to know. You think the Drift test will go alright?”

“They’re thick as thieves, those two,” Steve said. “If anyone’s going to work with Peter, it’s Jessica.”

LOCCENT was buzzing with activity. Sharon had her leg propped up on a chair and was grinning as Pepper signed it, neatly and with a flourish. Gwen was doing some last minute calculations while Rhodey looked on. Out of all of them, Gwen seemed the only one who was a little bit frazzled.

“I made many modifications to the Red Spider,” Thor was explaining to Jane, who had a faint blush dusting her cheeks. “Maybe sometime soon I can take you down into the bays so I can show you what else I’ve been doing?”

“That would be lovely,” Jane said, and Steve’s lips quirked up at how starstruck she sounded.

“I have engineered a Jaeger that three pilots may pilot, should they be so compatible!” Thor said excitedly. “I made it with my friends in mind— they would not be separated from each other for the world, the Warriors Three.”

“You sound very close with them,” Jane said.

“Initiating Neural Handshake,” Gwen said, and Carol laid a hand on her shoulder.

“Holy shit,” Peter said, sounding almost awestruck from within the Jaeger. “Is this what Drifting is supposed to feel like?” Pepper and Rhodey exchanged a stricken glance.

“Left arm calibrated,” Gwen said, sounding more at ease, and there was the sound of running footsteps from some ways away.

Bruce burst through the entranceway, panting, eyes wild, face nearly green. He took a deep breath and yelled, “ _TONY MADE A NEURAL BRIDGE FROM GARBAGE AND DRIFTED WITH A KAIJU_.” 

Fury was out like a shot, Steve going after him.

 

* * *

 

The lab was a disaster area. Darcy was brewing tea in the corner, looking shaken, and Tony was curled on the ground, hugging his desk chair. There was dried blood on his face and Steve felt a surge of protective anger.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Steve snapped, but Fury lifted a hand.

“Well?” he asked, and Tony looked up. Bruce knelt behind Tony, curling protectively around him as he just stared at Fury and Steve.

Then, he raised his hand in a victory sign.

“Oh man, you all thought I couldn’t do it, but I did and it was awesome, I wanna do it again sometime.”

“That’s not what you said when I found you,” Bruce said.

“Well, obviously I need someone else to take a part of the neural load—,”

“We are not going to try this again,” Fury said coldly. “You shouldn’t have done it once, but you did and I suppose there’s nothing I can do about that. Well? Did you get anything?”

“It’s amazing,” Tony breathed. “The Kaiju, all of them, the whole genetics being exactly the same thing— it’s not a coincidence. They’re a hive mind— they’re about the exact same being in every single mind. They’re clones, with some genetic modifications to make them more powerful. And some of them are mutated— they adapt to survive. Those ones are fucking huge— we need to end this before any of those Cat6s come through, because if they come through we are _royally fucked_.”

“What do they want?”

“Someone is controlling them,” Tony said. “Someone wants this world to be ravaged. They’re paving the way for a hero to rise up and take control, thinking that we will bow to him when he proves himself worthy of ruling the world by ridding us of the Kaiju, which are his creation. He’s working with some others… um, I had the name, it’s slipping away— Oh. HYDRA.”

Tony grimaced. Steve cursed. Darcy and Jane both started at the sound, and looked at Steve as though they hadn’t been expecting the word from his mouth. “Cut one head off, two more grow in its place,” Fury said, shaking his head. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

“I thought we took them down fifteen years ago,” Steve said.

“And we took them down in the war eight years ago,” Bruce said, eyes flashing. “They always survive. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Winter Soldier was under their control.”

“He probably was,” Tony snapped. “Well, all the more reason to find its main head, I guess.”

“Cut the Greek metaphors, Tony, they don’t suit you,” Darcy snarked. Bruce cracked a weak smile.

“Our main priority is not HYDRA, not right now,” Fury snapped. “Foster, Banner, get to work on figuring out how to close that Breach. Rogers… get Stark out of here. Medbay, maybe.”

Steve offered his hand to Tony, who took it and used it to yank himself to his feet. They walked in silence all the way to the medbay, at which point Tony stopped Steve dead.

“I can do this myself,” he said. “I will bring down HYDRA. For Bucky. He deserves that much, even if he doesn’t recognize his own godson.”

Steve watched him limp into the medbay, and wondered whether or not he was supposed to feel touched.

 

* * *

 

Steve was dreaming.

He had to have been dreaming, because Bucky’s eyes were alight with life and happiness, which was quite different from the Bucky sleeping at the edge of the Shatterdome. He was grinning cheekily, upside down, at Steve from his spot on the couch, and his hands were fiddling with a Rubik’s cube. “So, when do I get to meet this girl who caught your heart?”

“Never,” Steve joked, and the familiarity of the colors he saw was almost painful. Ah, to be young, asthmatic, and colorblind again. “Never, Bucky, you’ll steal her away from me.”

“Never,” Bucky said, rolling to his stomach so he was looking at Steve properly, shaking his head. “Never, Stevie. She’ll take you over me any day.”

“You’re sayin’ it like you’re the bad boy between the two of us,” Steve laughed, crossing his thin arms across his frame. “When everyone knows it’s the opposite. And besides,” Bucky quirked an eyebrow, and there was something in Steve’s gut he didn’t remember feeling, “she’s not my girl anyway.”

_Relief_. Relief washed over him like a wave and he could see Bucky school his face to keep it level. Steve had heard of ghost drift before, but this was just painful.

He woke up in a cold sweat and with his leg throbbing. Dazedly, he realized he’d forgotten to take the pain meds, reached for them, and realized that he’d forgotten to take them because he’d run out of them.

The clock told him that it was 3 in the afternoon. He probably should have been more worried about the excessive amount that he had slept, but he decided to focus on getting himself some pain medications from Bruce.

It had been a week. The attack count had died down again. Peter and Jess had proved formidable in the Spider, especially when paired with Kate and America in the Smasher. Steve was starting to get antsy, being grounded from his Jaeger, but Sam was refusing to drop and that left Steve stuck in his bunk since Bucky wouldn’t drop with him.

He’d asked.

“Drift with me,” he’d asked, tentatively, even while Bucky showed some wicked moves with his knife where he lounged on the couch across from him.

“No,” Bucky had said. He’d almost laughed while he’d said it. “You’re not my friend. You’re my mission.”

“If I’m your mission, then why am I still alive?”

Bucky had faltered for a moment, and then slammed the knife point into the table mere inches from Steve’s hand. When he let go, the hilt quivered.

“Haven’t figured that out yet,” Bucky had said gruffly, and left the room.

Steve hadn’t seen him since.

But fate, it seemed, was acting in his favor today. Halfway to the lab, he rounded a corner and stumbled across Bucky, sitting on the floor outside his room with something black cupped in his hands.

“Whatcha got there?” Steve asked, before he remembered Rebecca telling him that he was supposed to let Bucky see him before he talked. Bucky jumped, but he didn’t immediately dive for a knife, which Steve supposed was progress. Finally, he looked up. Steve was pleased to see the dark circles under his eyes were beginning to fade.

“Kitten,” he said thickly, and held out his hands. Steve crouched down to see two tiny blue eyes blink open at him and smiled as its mouth stretched in a tiny yawn.

“Someone give you a kitten?” Steve asked.

“Found ‘er,” Bucky said. “On the street. Marshal said I could go out for a while, as long as I didn’t ‘try to kill anyone, damnit’. She wasn’t scared of me, and she looked hungry, so I picked her up and I took her with me.”

“What if it was someone else’s cat?” Steve asked.

“She,” Bucky said absently, scratching the kitten behind her ears. “Then they weren’t doing a very good job taking care of her. I think she’s sick or something.”

Steve blinked at Bucky. On the one hand, he was glad that Bucky seemed to be taking an interest in something else, something alive. On the other hand, he still seemed pretty closed off.

“Come on,” he said. “You should have Bruce take a look at her, if you think she might be sick.”

Bucky looked at the hand Steve offered. “I can get up on my own, you know,” he said gruffly.

“Never said you couldn’t,” Steve countered. “I was once taught that it’s just the right thing to do.”

Bucky had taught him that, when he was younger. Bucky had offered him a hand up, the first time they’d met, and Steve had said almost the exact same thing. “It’s just the right thing to do,” Bucky had said to him, and smirked as Steve had accepted the offered hand.

Bucky blinked at him and then clambered upright on his own, one hand braced against the wall, the other keeping a gentle hold on the kitten in his hands. Gently, he put her on top of his head— Steve smiled as she kneaded at the hair there, pulling it out of its ponytail— and then walked slowly with Steve to the lab. Steve didn’t try to say anything or bring anything up, and he wondered if Bucky was grateful for that.

“Why are you following me?” Bucky asked suddenly. “Don’t need your help to get my kitten checked over, either.”

“Not following you,” Steve said. “I need to see Jane. The stab wound’s inflamed again.”

Bucky gave him a Look. “I’m sorry about your leg,” he said dryly. “Do you want me to kiss it better?”

Steve’s heart skipped. Bucky had said that to him once, when they’d been younger. “Nah,” he said. “No need.”

The doors to the lab were suddenly there, and Steve almost walked into them. Bucky laughed, a colder version of how he’d laughed before the war, but with strains of Bucky underneath it all.

The door suddenly slammed open, and Clint was standing there. “Fury?” he asked. “Oh. You two. It’d probably be best if you stay out. We’ve got a situation in here.”

“Dr. Banner?” Bucky asked, ignoring Clint, and pushed past him to stand just inside the lab. Darcy was standing next to Bruce, hand resting on his shoulder as he hunched over his desk, hands braced against the edge of the table. He was breathing heavily.

“Get out of here,” Clint said to Darcy. “Go get Fury- we can handle him.” Darcy nodded and left the lab, just as Natasha appeared, staring straight at Bruce, who was attempting to move to a sitting position, and knocked over a piece of Tony’s lab equipment.

“Natasha!” Clint said suddenly, but he was a moment too late. Steve’s chest seized as she darted past the two of them into the lab. Bucky slowly backed up until he was pressed against the wall, kitten still perched on his head. As for Bruce… well.

Bruce Banner did not look good at all. He was positively green in the face, and his pupils were blown wide. He had managed to get a grip on the arms of two separate chairs, breathing heavily and attempting to regain his footing. This proved to be a failure, and only knocked more equipment to the floor. Bucky looked terrified.

“Bruce!” Natasha said, kneeling in front of him. “Bruce, it’s going to be fine. You’ll be okay, I promise.”  

“It is _not_ okay.” Bruce snarled, and Clint took a step forwards. “It’s not… I’m a failure, Natalia, everything I have done insofar has done _nothing_ to help-,”  

“Control yourself! You are not a failure. You didn’t fail. It was the Council who did this to you. None of what has happened to you was your fault.”  

“I pushed too hard.” Bruce snarled. “People _died_ because of me.”  

“And I am   _alive_.” Natasha snapped. “And a war that dragged on for four years is over, because of you. Harlem is not your fault. Betty's death is  _not your fault_. I can prove it to you — you have to trust me. I can get you out of this.”  

Bucky was slowly inching around the wall towards Steve and Clint. Steve’s head was reeling. “What war?” he mouthed to Clint, who shook his head frantically at him.  

Natasha fumbled for one of the helmets, her other hand tangled with Bruce’s. “Drift with me,” she said. “I’ll show you what happened before Harlem. I’ll show you that it wasn’t your fault.”  

“I’m here because I was drifting,” Bruce snarled, and his expression twisted cruelly. “I’m like this because they _kept making me drift_ even though it was _killing me_.”  

“You have to trust me!” Natasha gasped. “Please, Bruce, please trust me. I can help you. Only for a moment, it only has to be for a moment!”  

Bruce blinked at her and then sharply ducked his head. And that was enough for her to jam the helmet onto her head and kick the switch, and they both plunged into the Drift, shaking. Steve was too shaken to have tried to stop Clint had he attempted to make a move… but Clint seemed frozen as well.  

“He’s not green anymore,” said Bucky in Steve’s ear. Which was true; Bruce’s breathing was beginning to even out and his color was slowly returning to normal.  

They fell out of the Drift, Natasha letting out a long, rasping breath, looking as though she had tears running down her face. She brushed them away so quickly that Steve couldn’t actually tell if they were there.  

Bruce and Natasha stared at each other for a long moment. Finally, Bruce cleared his throat. “Have you told him?” he rasped, and Clint jerked in surprise.  

Natasha stared blankly at him, then huffed on a laugh and looked down. “No,” she said quietly. “Haven’t gotten around to it. I've been trying to come up with the words. You can’t just spring pregnancy on someone, not unless it’s a moment of high stress.” She grimaced, as though she’d just realized what she’d said. Clint staggered backwards a step. “Like right now.”

“What?” Clint and Bucky said as one.  

“That was incredibly dangerous," he said, shaking his head slowly. "Drifting with someone who you didn’t know if you were compatible with while being three months along.” 

Clint took a tentative step forwards, eyes shining.  “Natasha…”  

"I wasn't sure," she retorted quietly. "We've been so caught up in him—," she jerked her thumb at Bucky, who recoiled "— for me to have any time to check. And I thought… Well. Clearly, I was wrong about that, seeing as I just got... confirmation."  

"Three months along?" Clint asked, kneeling in front of her.  

"Probably closer to four at this point." Natasha chuckled dryly. "Clint, how am I going to raise a baby in all of this?"  

"With me at your side," Clint retorted, and kissed her. "And Sam," he added, when they broke apart. "This  kid'll  have the two best dads in the whole Dome."  

He ducked his head down to press his ear to her belly. "Hello, baby," he said quietly, and laughed to himself. "Baby," he said in wonder. "Holy shit, we're going to have a baby. Rhodey is going to kill me."  

"So is Fury, if you don't marry her," Bruce said, a light finally returning to his eyes.  

Steve took a quiet step backwards, and turned to look at Bucky, to see if maybe this was proof enough that the Drift could help him. But  Bucky  had  left the room, probably headed as far from the lab as he could get. Steve ached to follow him out, but he knew that his friend just needed some time away from the madness.  

"Steve?" Bruce asked. "I think I would be willing to tell you about the war now."  

 

* * *

 

"In the early days of the invasion," Bruce began, haltingly, "the world wasn't quite so willing to cooperate with one another. Europe became a tightly knit force, but America and Russia were not so willing to work together, and China wanted nothing to do with any of it for a long time."  

Tony was tinkering away at his table, but the way his head was tilted and the fact that he had been tapping away at the same helmet for the duration of Bruce's beginning tipped Steve off to the idea that Tony was paying more attention to the story than anything else.  

"About a year after you went on ice, things came to a head. Russia had been working secretly for years on single-pilot Jaegers, believing that if they could train single-minded assassins who felt nothing, they would have no need for Drifting and opening oneself up to other people. Often they were kidnapping children to do so. That program was the Red Room program. Why Red Room? No one knows for sure. Natasha and James are the only ones still around from the program— most of the other pilots couldn't handle co-piloting— and they aren't telling." Steve shuddered. "We found out about Red Room and used it as an excuse to begin a  war. Jaeger fought Jaeger, even as the  Kaiju  continued to grow in size and number.  

"There were other reasons for the war, none of which they  have yet told us. Fury was, at the time, in charge of the  Shatterdome  in California, under the leadership of the World Security Council. They were a group of people established to oversee the Jaeger program. As the war dragged on, their decisions became more and more rash, until they were jeopardizing the lives of their pilots on terrible missions that just set the war back even further.  

"I was drift compatible with anyone, or at least, that was the assumption of the Council. When my  co-pilot was injured on a flight, they told Fury to Drift with me and head for the Red Room in  Moscow. We did. We ended the war, and we rescued young Natasha from their clutches. I believe she has told you of her relationship with the Winter Soldier?" Steve nodded. "He wasn't there at the time. If he had, I guarantee we wouldn't have left him behind. But he was on an assassination. We never met him.  

"The Council was pleased with our victory. They thought it was due to the combination of pilots, rather than pure luck. They continued to send us on missions. As it turned out, something about Fury was not compatible with me. Something didn't click. I remained trapped in the Drift for longer and longer periods of time. It started to drive me mad- I'm not sure if what I began to experience was dissociation or not, but at this moment I do believe there is another person in my head, due to those excessive missions with someone I wasn't compatible with. A Mr. Hyde, if you will."  

"Mr. Hyde was a monster," Steve said sharply. "I don't believe you're a monster, Dr. Banner."  

"Thank you for the vote of confidence, Cap," Bruce said, smiling sadly. "But there is a monster inside this head of mine. And he emerged during a fight in New York. Fury lost control of the Jaeger- the other guy was so powerful that he dominated over both of us. We destroyed Harlem- we killed a thousand people, including my copilot, whose injury had prompted my drifting with Fury in the first place."  

"I'm so sorry."  

"I've never forgiven myself for it." Bruce said.  _Harlem was not your fault,_  said Natasha in Steve's memory.  _Betty's death was not your fault._ "Fury, instead of having me arrested or locked up, flipped his shit on the World Security Council. When they showed no remorse, he appealed to a friend of his, Alexander Pierce. It turned out that Pierce had been the  puppetmaster  all along, however — of the war and of the Council. The fight at the top of the Empire State Building was not pretty. In fact, I do believe the Winter Soldier, in his Jaeger, was involved, but he scampered before anyone could get to him. His next mission, by the way, was to kill Howard and Maria Stark," he added ruefully. "So we could have prevented your parent's deaths, Tony."  

"Not your fault." Tony said gruffly. "Not Bucky's, either. Well, he pulled the trigger, but I'll forgive him for that. Whoever was in charge of my dad's death is dead now."  

"Yes, he is," Bruce chuckled dryly. "The Council, shocked and appalled that someone had been pulling the strings on their decisions for so long, appealed to their governments to band together to fight the  Kaiju  and end pointless wars. Fury became the head of the whole thing, transferred here to Hong Kong to oversee the program. The Council disbanded itself after that, leaving the running of things to Fury."   

"And now here we are."  

Bruce nodded. "And now here we are."

There was a tiny meow, and the kitten that Bucky had picked up appeared on the table, rubbing against Bruce’s hand. Bruce gave it a wan smile. “Hello there,” he said. “Where’d you come from, then?”

“Barnes brought it back,” Tony said breezily.

“I told him to come see you about her,” Steve said. Bruce’s muscles seemed to be unwinding even as the kitten licked his fingers, and he looked up.“He thinks she might be sick.”

“I don’t think she looks sick, just underfed.” Bruce said, and gently lifted her into his hands. “She also seems to be half-blind. Quite adorable, though. And very courageous.” The kitten licked his cheek. “Well, tell him to bring her to me later so I can tell him about caring for her and the like.”

“It’s odd,” Steve said, and took the kitten from Bruce’s hands. “Bucky was never a cat person.”

“People change,” Tony said gruffly.

 

* * *

 

There was a notification on Steve's wall the next morning- an exclamation point that slowly pulsed as he watched it. "Yeah, Jarvis?" Steve asked. 

"Barton wants to see you in block C, Captain," Jarvis said quietly. "Something about the Soldier. He didn't go into specifics."

Steve stood up slowly and slung Bucky's army jacket on. "I'll be there shortly."

The halls were quiet, apart from Kate, who was holding an entire coffee pot and nodded sleepily as they passed. Block C turned out to be interrogation, and Steve pushed open the door with a sick feeling in his stomach. 

"So," Steve said. "What are we doing here today?"

The only person in the room was Rhodey, who glanced up. "Fury wants information on HYDRA," he said quietly. 

"And he thinks the best way to do it is to handcuff a man with PTSD who has clearly been tortured and leave him alone in a room.”

Rhodey glanced into the room. "I never said I agreed with what he decided."

“I don’t like this,” Steve said quietly. “This could set him off. We don’t want that.”

“Clint’s good at this,” Rhodey said. “He’ll make it all work.”

“Hey, James.” Clint stepped into the room. Bucky’s eyes tracked him as he moved to the table to take a seat. Behind him, a big golden retriever padded in to flop down on the floor near Clint’s feet.

“Hi,” Bucky said guardedly. “What’s all this?”

“Just wanna ask you a few questions, that’s all,” Clint said, soothingly. Bucky lifted his cuffed hands with an expression that Steve recognized— it was his “you’re really going to try to get one over on me” look, and Steve had faced it more times than he would care to admit.

Clint, however, visibly rolled his eyes. “Marshal Fury apparently thinks that he can trust you out in Hong Kong, but not with one of his Rangers who happens to be the greatest hand-to-hand combatant outside of Cap. Don’t worry. I swiped the key.”

Bucky watched as Clint leaned forwards to unlock the cuffs. “You trust me?”

“Sure,” Clint said. “I mean, yeah, you tried to blow up the Shatterdome, but in the process you wrecked a God-ugly Jaeger. Gotta be grateful for some things, you know?”

Bucky snorted. Steve looked at Rhodey, who had the hint of a smile playing around his features.

“Besides,” Clint said, leaning back in his chair, “you rescued a kitten yesterday. Forgive me if I’m not quaking in my boots.”

Bucky looked at the dog. “Star?” he asked.

“Nah, Lucky,” Clint said, leaning forwards to scratch behind the mutt’s ear. “Pizza dog. Found him on my last leave, when I went home. He was eating pizza off my stoop. I brought him back here because— well, he’s a doof, and he makes a good pillow on rainy days. Lucky, attack.”

Bucky flinched back, but Lucky just stood up, lumbered forwards, and flopped his head on Bucky’s knee, plopping down next to him.

“There, see?” Clint was grinning— Steve could hear it in his voice. “Now, here’s how this is going to work. I’m going to ask you questions, and you’re going to answer them. If you don’t know the answer, tell me you don’t know. If I think you’re lying, I’ll sic Lucky on you. If it gets to be too much, say something, I dunno, a safeword, and I’ll stop and we’ll be done for the day.”

“Sounds a little kinky, Barton,” Bucky drawled, leaning backwards. “Safewording.”

“It’s an effective system. You pick the word. What’s it gonna be?”

Bucky blinked for a moment. “Freedom,” he said thickly, and Steve snorted.

Clint just nodded. “All right. What’s your name?”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really. Gotta start with the basics.”

Bucky blinked. “James Buchanan Barnes,” he said, after a long hesitation. Rhodey let out a breath, next to Steve.

“How old are you, James?”

Bucky blinked, and his eyes flicked up as though he were counting backwards in his head. “42,” he said. “I think. If I have the years counted right.”

“Okay.” Clint rifled through the papers he had in front of him. Lucky licked Bucky’s hand. “What’s the first thing you remember?”

“Flying.” Bucky said promptly, and furrowed his eyebrows. “Except, no, that’s not right. I remember blowing out the candles on a cake. Five candles, red ones. Except… it doesn’t seem like it’s my memory. It’s like I’m remembering it in the picture quality of a bad tube television. Do you know what those are?”

“I do, thank you for the jibe at my age,” Clint said. “What’s the first thing that you remember clearly, without all the static?”

Bucky looked off at nothing in particular— except where he was looking was where Steve was standing, watching him. His gaze was piercing. “Mouth guard,” he said. “Needles— really big ones. Manacles like these—,” he held up the handcuffs “—except they were attached to the chair.” He squeezed his eyes shut tightly, and Clint silently took the handcuffs from him. “Pain,” he whispered. “Lots of pain.”

“Pain’s over now,” Clint said gently, leaning forwards. “Hey. Look at me. No more pain. Unless, you know, you break an ankle. But that kind of stuff? Not gonna happen here. You’re safe.”

Bucky nodded slowly.

“Is there anything good you remember?”

“There was a girl with me in the Red Room,” Bucky said quietly. “She was young— she was very young. But I— I loved her. They— they killed her, in the end. At the end of the war. And then they made me forget. But I remember her now.”

“What was her name?” Clint asked.

“Natalia.” Steve jerked. “Natalia Alinova Romanova.”

Clint tensed up where he sat. Bucky caught the motion. “Do you recognize the name?”

“Somewhat,” Clint said. “Hm. I’ll ask around.”

“It was my fault,” Bucky mumbled, eyes downcast. “They found out about us because I— I was too careless. I made it too obvious that I was happy. They sent me on a mission when they knew the Americans were coming because they knew that if it was between me being alive and her being alive, I’d choose her, every time.”

“Do you feel the same way about her?” Clint asked. His voice sounded tight.

“If she’s alive,” Bucky said, quietly, “then I don’t think I’d know her anymore.”

Clint nodded. “Are you up to more questions?”

Bucky shook his head.

“Okay. That’s fine. I’ll come by later to talk to you about other things, okay?”

Bucky nodded. “Can Lucky come with me?”

“Is your cat going to attack him?”

“Beast,” Bucky said proudly, “Her name is Beast. And no, she won’t attack Lucky.”

“Then sure, he can come with you.” Bucky beamed and whistled for Lucky to follow him out of the room.

Steve and Rhodey waited until Clint came in, running a hand through his short hair. “He just needs time,” Clint said. “He’s remembering fragments, but too much at once and boom. He could spiral into a place where we won’t be able to get him back.”

“Why didn’t you tell him about Natasha?” Steve asked, folding his arms.

“I wanted that to be her decision.” Clint shrugged. “If she doesn’t want him to remember her, then fine. If she does, that’s also fine. But no one should make that decision except for her. I’ll tell her about it first thing and see what she says. If she says it’s okay, then she’ll go talk to him. If not—,”

“Clint!” Tony barged into the room abruptly, skidding to a halt before he crashed into Steve. “Sorry, Rhodey. Sorry. Clint, we need you in the bays. We can’t find Miles Morales, and Peter looks like he’s about to have a goddamn panic attack.”

 

* * *

 

When they got to the bays, it was to see Sharon, leaning on her crutches, talking to Peter, who was shaking his head. “Are you sure that he was there?”

“That was the last place I saw him, Sharon,” Peter said angrily. “I have no idea- he could be anywhere in the Dome by now.”

“Sam and Thor are out looking for him, it’ll be alright,” Sharon said, rubbing her hand up and down Peter’s arm soothingly, but Peter shook her off.

“He’s just a kid, he could get seriously hurt, I dunno what I was thinking—,”

“Peter,” Gwen said sharply. Steve followed her gaze to see a small shape clinging to the top of Sunshine Smasher’s golden shoulder.

“How the hell did he get up there?” Sharon gasped.

“He climbed,” Peter said, and took off. “ _MILES_!”

“Peter!” Jessica yelled, and chased after him. Steve made to stride forwards, but Tony caught him by the arm in a surprisingly strong grip for a man who still looked close to death after Drifting with a giant cloned monster.

“Smasher’s one of the oldest Jaegers here, Steve. If you break something on her, you could both die.”

“I have to help Peter!” Steve said, trying to yank himself free, but Tony hung on.

“Someone get Thor and Sam back here right fucking now.”

“Sam won’t be much help- the bullets ripped through his wings during the fight with the Winter Soldier and they haven’t been fixed yet.” Sharon said sadly. “Miles’ only chance is Peter at this point. I just hope they grabbed the webs before they climbed halfway up the Jaeger.”

“ _Peter_!” Gwen yelled, but Peter continued to scale Smasher. The higher he went, the more ragged Steve’s breath became. _Please, no, not another unnecessary death_ , he prayed.

“Miles, you _motherhugger_ , what the hell are you doing?” Peter roared.

Miles Morales looked incredibly small against the might of the Smasher’s head. He perched on her shoulder, arms hugging his knees to his chest. And, despite being a hundred meters in the air, his voice was perfectly audible when he said, “Wanted to be a hero like you.”

“By scaling the biggest Jaeger in the Dome?” Peter asked. “No, don’t answer that. You did it, and I’m kinda proud, but seriously.”

“Wanted to be a hero,” Miles whispered again. “Wanted to be like you, Pete.”

Steve pulled as hard as he could against Tony’s grip. “Let me go, Stark. LET ME GO.”

“I told you— you can’t do anything, Steve, you’ll just put them in more danger!” Tony snapped.

By that point, Peter was balanced against Smasher’s chestplate, his hand locked in one of the places where the plate was pulling away. His weight was light enough that he could get a firm grip on it without running the risk of falling himself, but Steve’s breath was still too quick.

"Don't try to be like me," Peter begged. "You don't wanna be a hero just yet. You'll look back and think _man_ , wish I’d listened to Pete and been a normal kid."

"I'm not scared," Miles said angrily.

"Bravery's got nothin’ to do with it!" Peter yelled. His voice broke and Steve pulled harder against Tony’s grip. "It ain’t bravery that's the problem. Hell, you're the bravest kid I ever met. And it's not ‘cause you're not strong or smart neither. Bein' a hero means knowin' when to not make the rash decision. It means bein' wise enough to keep the people that you love alive. And if I haven't even learned how to do that yet, then how d'you know you'd be able to make the right call?"

That gave Miles pause. Then, he looked down and gasped, as if he’d only just realized what he’d done. "Peter, I'm coming!" Jess yelled.

"You stay right there, Miles," Peter said soothingly. "Don't you move from that spot, all right? Jess is comin' to get you. _Miles_!"

"I'm not doing anything!" Miles yelped. "Pete, I'm slipping!"

Steve felt his heart stop in his throat. Tony, behind him, tensed so fast Steve would have thought he’d turned to stone.

"Miles, you gotta find a handhold, all right?" Peter yelled desperately. "I don't have the webs up here; I can't catch you if you fall!"

"There's no place to grip!"

" _Jess_!"

"Miles, please, hold on!"

Anya was crying. Pepper wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her into a hug. Gwen was covering her mouth with both hands. "I need my goddamn wings!" Sam yelled.

"Thor still hasn't fixed them!" Sharon whispered. Sam looked stricken.

"Peter, I'm scared!"

"Miles, it's gonna be okay, look, you've got a handhold, it's all right, I'm coming to get you, see? I- _NO_!"

Whatever tiny piece of metal Miles had managed to cling to suddenly snapped and he fell. Peter, always eloquent, cursed loudly.

"Peter, don't you dare!" Jessica yelled.

Peter shook his head and dove after Miles.

Time seemed to slow down. Steve could not move even if he wanted to. Gwen's mouth was open in a silent scream. Pepper just held Anya closer, and it looked like she was yelling for someone to come. Thor was spinning his hammer. In the silence, one person's voice was audible.

" _Peter_!" Jessica screamed, reaching down from the ropes.

Something blurry darted past Steve, just as time snapped back to normal and Peter slammed to the ground with a chilling thud, sending up a dust cloud and rattling the entire dome.

Then, there was nothing but silence.

Steve moved first. He yanked himself from Tony's grip and set off in a dead sprint for the dust cloud, ignoring the sudden agony in his leg. From the sound, Tony was not far behind him, running as Steve ran for the impact zone.

"Peter? _Peter_!"

"Parker!"

Steve coughed heavily on the dust that had shot up. There was a crash and then Jessica's frantic yelling as she headed, presumably, deeper into the cloud. "Pete? Miles?"

"Jess?" Steve allowed himself one sigh of relief at the sound of Miles' voice. "Peter, it's Jess! Pete? _Pete_?!"

Tony cursed loudly and waved away the dust. Then, there was a groan. "Jesus, kid, not so loud."

"Parker!" Tony roared, and yanked Peter from seemingly nowhere to shake him to his feet. Apart from an awkwardly twisted ankle and several long scratches on his face, he looked no worse for wear. Miles, who Jessica had scooped up, looked unscathed, but severely shaken. Steve jerked his head towards Jane; Jessica nodded and vanished.

"What the _hell_ were you thinking, you dumb fuck?" Tony yelled, shoving Peter hard enough that he stumbled, wincing in pain. But Peter gritted his teeth and look Tony dead in the eye.

"I have lost almost all my family now." he said angrily. " _All of them_. Because of stupid decisions that _I made_. Forgive me if I wanted to make a bad choice that would actually _save_ someone, for once. And don't try to tell me that you wouldn't have done the same."

They glared at each other for a long moment. Finally, Tony heaved a shaky breath and pressed his fingers to his temples. "Okay. New rule," he said. "You always carry the webs with you. _Always_. This never happens again. _Are we clear_?"

"Yessir," Peter said, and winced.

"You shouldn't have survived that." Steve muttered, staring upwards, to where Smasher’s head glared menacingly down. "That was a hundred meter drop- you should have a broken back. How did you not?"

The dust cleared even further, revealing a dark shape pushing itself into a sitting position. Steve felt his jaw drop as he saw the glint of a red star. When he tried to speak, he found he had no voice.

"James?" Tony asked, in disbelief.

Bucky slowly looked up at Peter, Steve, and Tony. "Don't be a dumbass again," he finally gritted out, and coughed on the dust surrounding him.

"Why?" Peter asked, in a barely audible whisper.

"Because, goddamnit, I don't want any more blood on my hands." Bucky struggled to climb to his feet, ignoring Steve's extended hand. "Not if I can stop it."

Then he slowly began to limp away, and Jane and Gwen and Pepper were stumbling towards them, all shouting several things at once, and Steve hurriedly took a step back.

“Fury,” Sam said next to him, and Steve followed his outstretched finger to where the Marshal was standing. “Best to go talk to him.”

Steve glanced at Carol and Tony, who had started glaring daggers at each other, and moved towards them as quickly as he could. “Fury, now,” he said, and began to drag them both towards the Marshal.

 

* * *

 

 

"I'm not sure what you're trying to tell me," Fury said, folding his arms and glaring at the rangers in front of him.

"Parker risked his own life in scaling a 100 meter Jaeger," Carol snapped. "He could have died!"

"And in catching Miles Morales as he fell, Peter saved his life," Fury said. "Risking sacrificing himself in the process. Was it a dumbass move? Yes. Was it made in good judgement of right and wrong? Absolutely. You cannot deny, Danvers, that if Agent Carter or Miss Khan were in danger and you could save their lives you would, without question."

Carol opened her mouth to respond. Fury lifted his hand to cut her off.

"Do not protest it," he said. "Parker learned an important lesson today. So did Miles. And I expect that both Parker and his sister will be carrying their webs with them a little more often. That's a good rule. I like that rule."

"I aim to please," said Tony, from his spot at the workbench.

"No disciplinary action will be taken against a man who saved a boy's life today," Fury said. "End of discussion."

Steve, leaning against the wall, nodded solemnly. "Don't fight him, Carol," he said, as she made to surge forwards. "You know he's right."

"I want him taken off active duty again," she grumbled.

"Already done," Tony remarked. "That ankle of his is gonna get him nowhere for a while. Hey, Cap, you may wanna talk to your buddy. Rhodey looks like he's gonna have a cow."

"How do you know?" Carol asked.

"I've had access to the security feeds from day one." Tony said, waving her off. "Steve? Go."

Steve went.

The maze of halls to Bucky's quarters seemed impossibly long, and Steve found his injured leg growing worse and worse with every step. When he rounded the corner, he saw Beast quietly grooming herself outside the door. She looked up as Steve approached and purred. Steve scritched her behind the ears and pushed the door open to Bucky's room.

"Out," he ordered the terrified agent, who scampered. Bucky was pressed against the wall under his singular window, arms locked around his knees, staring at the wall on the opposite side of the room. As for the room itself, well, there wasn't a piece of furniture that hadn't been turned on its head.

Steve tentatively approached. "What happened?" he asked.

Bucky looked up at him, and his eyes were so human that it tore Steve to pieces to see it. "I killed them," he said quietly.

"Killed who?" he asked.

"I killed the Starks." Steve drew in a breath. "I ripped the blade off their chopper and watched it spiral into the shore, and I turned aside without batting an eye. Your friends. Tony's parents. _Howard and Maria_. I _killed_ them. And you can still look at me?"

"Maria?" Steve was thrown for a loop. "Her name wasn't Maria."

Bucky blinked in shock. "They told me her name was Maria," he said coldly.

Steve shook his head. "Tony's mother was Peggy Carter," he said. "Margaret. Not Maria."

Bucky's eyes stretched wider than dinner plates. " _Peggy_ ," he nearly whimpered. "I killed _Peggy Carter_?"

Steve stared at him sadly. There was what looked like a tear rolling own Bucky's stubbled cheek.

"How can you even stand to be in the same room as the man who killed _Peggy Carter_?" Bucky asked, and he sounded so broken that Steve stepped forwards and knelt in front of him.

"I know it wasn't you," Steve said softly. "I know you weren't you, and Tony knows that as well. The man who ordered their deaths is dead himself, for closing on eight years now. Hey. It _wasn't you._ "

Bucky stared at him with wide eyes. (This was the moment, in the standard romcom, where Bucky would have stretched up and kissed Steve. But the apocalypse was no romcom.)

"Drift with me," Steve said instead. "I can prove it to you."

Bucky shook his head, slowly at first, and then more and more violently.

"Please," Steve whispered.

"No," Bucky growled. "Don't you understand? I have drifted alone for fifteen years. The reason why we can't drift alone is because— being locked in your own memories and nothing but for fifteen years- reliving the worst moments of your life over and over again for years and years for all eternity— it's hell. It drives you insane. Do you even remember Dr. Banner yesterday? That's what I am. A _monster_ , lying in wait in my head. If we drift, I will _kill you_."

"No you won't," Steve said. "I can stop you."

Bucky glared at him. "Leave," he snarled.

Steve slowly stretched up. "I forgive you," he said, quietly.

"I said, _leave_."

Steve left.

He left Bucky's room, left the maze, left the Dome itself and ventured deep into the stormy city. There was a weight pressing down on his chest the likes of which he hadn't felt since long before the war.

Tony and Darcy found him seven hours later, shivering in a dingy little bar three hours away from the Shatterdome. "You fucking idiot," Tony muttered, but his hands were gentle as he braced one of them at the small of Steve's back. "Not worth drinking yourself to death over, you know."

"Can't get drunk anyway," Steve muttered. "Just minimizing Bucky's inheritance."

"You keep making these goddamn will jokes and I don’t understand any of them," Tony grumbled. "Don't make jokes that no one will understand."

"Jesus, you're burning up," Darcy said suddenly. "Steve, were you out in the rain this whole time?"

"Not the whole time," Steve muttered. "Like, an hour?"

"Come on," Darcy sighed, leading Steve outside to the chopper. "Let's get some soup into you. May makes the best chicken-n-stars soup I've ever had in my life."

The helicopter ride back was silent, until Tony cleared his throat. “They told him my mother’s name was Maria?”

“Yes,” Steve said blankly.

“Why?”

Steve shrugged. Darcy looked up. “Could it be,” she said, tentatively, “that every time they said Peggy’s name to him, he remembered who he was?”

“A trigger word,” Tony said. “Has anyone called you Steve in front of him yet?”

“They would have been cautious about Steve Rogers,” Darcy pointed out. “But Bucky was in love with Peggy, wasn’t he? Did they know that? If they didn’t, if they just used her name casually in front of him when they told him… well, he would have gone berserk, right, and they would have needed to start over.”

“A fake name to keep him sedated and ensure he carried out the mission.” Tony put his head in his hands. “God. Fuck.”

“Can we not talk about this, please?” Steve said, and tried to regulate his breathing back to normal. “Please?”

“Of course,” Darcy said, shooting Tony a glare. He nodded slowly, staring at his hands, and Steve settled backwards, feeling more high strung than he had when he’d left the Dome to begin with.

 

* * *

 

The soup was very good. Steve had long since finished it and Kate was thrashing him and Darcy at the fifth game of blackjack when Clint poked his head through the door and grinned at them.

“Kate!” he said. “Come here, we’ve got a surprise for you!”

“It had better be better than cleaning Steve and Darcy out,” Kate retorted, and threw her cards down. Clint swung the door open and leaned against the doorframe, one hand propped against the opposite of the frame. “Do I have to follow you somewhere? Be blindfolded?”

“I should hope I’m worth you giving up your game,” said a new voice, and a kid with spiky black hair stepped under Clint’s arm where he’d braced it against the door. Kate let out a loud squeal.

“Billy!” she yelled, flinging her arms around his neck. “I didn’t know you were coming back!”

“Now you really sound like my mom,” Billy grumbled, but swung her in a wide circle. “Well, Ororo got off maternity leave earlier than expected, so Xavier sent us home.”

“Think he was glad to be rid of us, actually,” said another voice, and Billy’s twin appeared in the room. “What, no excited squeal for me?”

Kate rolled her eyes at Steve and leaned forwards to press a kiss to the boy’s cheek. “You’ve got enough energy, Tommy,” she said, “and you’re not my best friend. Is Teddy back too?”

“Yeah, he just went to go call Eli, he’ll be down soon.” Billy peered over Kate’s shoulder. “Cap?” he asked uncertainly, eyes shining. Tommy perked up.

“That’s me,” Steve said, and rose. Billy’s eyes went huge. “Hope I’m as cool as the stories say.”

“You’re cooler!” Tommy blurted, and looked stricken that he’d spoken. Steve smiled and offered a hand to Billy, who looked up at him in wonder.

“Do you wanna see how cool I can be?” Steve asked. Billy grinned. “Darcy, go get the other kids. Meet us down in the gyms.”

 

* * *

 

“All right,” Steve folded his arms, surveying the Rangers in front of him. “Darcy, I think you’d better stay, too, you never know when this could be useful. I think you kids should learn some basic hand-to-hand.”

“Hand to hand combat?” America’s eyes lit up. Anya and Jess straightened up. Even Tommy looked interested. Steve nodded.

“You’re not going to be able to rely on weaponry all the time.” Steve said, shaking his head. “I was in a Mark 2 Jaeger for five years that didn’t have an ounce of tech on it. Smasher is a Mark 4 and has nothing but tech. Tracker Gamma is a Mark 5. But the Kaiju, as we have learned, are adaptable. They’ve figured out how to take out the tech. If you want to survive, you’re going to have to learn how to improvise.”

“Why are you teaching only us?” Billy spoke up. “What about the older pilots?”

“Wanda and Pietro are capable.” Steve explained. “Clint and Natasha are both experts in hand to hand anyway. And if we fail, you’re the hope we have at ending this war. If you want, you can find your friends and teach them what I taught you. All right, America, you look ready to go.”

America looked up. “Me?”

“Yeah.” Steve kicked off his shoes and backed onto the mat. “Fight me.”

America hesitantly stepped up. “I never expected to punch an American icon in the face.”

“I encourage it,” Steve said, smiling slightly. “Don’t hold anything back.”

America cracked her knuckles and swung. Steve sidestepped the punch, and America stumbled.

“First rule,” Steve told the others, watching with wide eyes. “Keep a wide base. It’ll be harder to knock you over if you do.”

He looked up to the doorway for a moment and caught a flash of silver. “All right, America,” he said. “Try again.”

America was already on her feet again, although Steve was pleased to notice her feet were set wider. Then, a fist made contact with his shoulder and he grinned. “Good,” he said, catching her next hand and deflecting the other punch she threw. “You’re skilled.”

“Been learning since I was five,” America grinned, and hooked her leg under Steve’s to bring him crashing down.

“Ow,” he said, and grinned. “Really, really good. All right, who wants a shot against her?”

Kate stepped up, eyes shining. Steve stepped off the mat towards where he knew Bucky was lurking. “Wanna show them some moves?” he asked, and there was a sound of metal hitting metal.

Bucky emerged, clean shaven, hair pulled away from his face, looking ever closer to his old self. He looked troubled. “What if I hurt them?” he asked.

“Then you can fight me, and they can mimic you. You’re probably better at hand-to-hand anyway. I was frozen for fifteen years; I’m still a little rusty.”

Bucky watched him for a long moment, and then slowly nodded.

Kate was straddling America on the floor, hand locked loosely around her partner’s throat. “Wow,” Steve said. “That was impressive. Hey, get off the mat for a second.” He turned to Bucky, who nodded, and then he stepped out of the shadows. “This is Bu- James,” he corrected himself quickly, glancing at Bucky. “He’s gonna spar with me to show you how the old people fight.”

“Old people?” Bucky’s mouth opened. “You callin’ me old, now?”

“I’ll call you whatever I want,” Steve grinned.

“Oh, now you’re asking for it.” There was Bucky’s old grin playing around his features, but before Steve could say anything else Bucky was throwing a punch.

It was suddenly 2009 again, and they were rolling around on the floor of Bucky’s apartment, the blows that they threw playful. Steve was evenly matched despite Bucky having a full head on him. Not a single blow actually landed, however, as Steve deflected all of Bucky’s and Bucky caught all of Steve’s.

Then it was back to 2035, and Steve was dodging a punch just as Bucky hooked his leg around his ankles and brought him crashing down, right onto the bad leg. Steve winced with pain but kicked out in retribution and brought Bucky down on top of him. Bucky just smirked at him, but Steve was bigger than he had used to be and used his legs to roll the pair over so Bucky was on his back, Steve poised above him. Bucky was breathing, hot and heavy against Steve’s neck, and _God_ , he looked so beautiful.

It occurred to him, then, that their noses were brushing, and Steve inhaled sharply, shooting up and away, not willing to confront the churning in his gut at that moment. Bucky slowly sat up, not breaking their gaze.

“Wow,” Peter said, and when Steve tore his gaze away from Bucky to look over at the kids, it was to see Darcy fanning herself and Billy watching him quizzically. 

“That was like watching a sex scene.” Everyone turned to glare at Tommy, who lifted his hands. “Sorry. Someone needed to say it.”

When Steve looked back at Bucky, it was to see Bucky was still there, watching him guardedly. “I think you guys should practice on your own for a while,” he said. “America, if they need help, give them a couple of pointers?”

He offered his hand to Bucky, who scrambled up on his own and turned to leave. Steve caught him by the arm before he could.

“Thank you,” he said, quietly. “That meant a lot to me.”

Bucky blinked at him. “Sure,” he said, thickly, and made to leave the room.

 

* * *

 

“Are you up for doing this?” Sam asked, rubbing his hands up and down Natasha’s arms.

“Yes,” she said, and glanced quickly at Steve before looking away again. “I need to. I need to do this, for closure.”

Steve rested a hand on her arm. “If you need us, yell,” he told her. “We’ll be right here.”

Natasha nodded, squared her shoulders, and knocked on the door to the interrogation room. Steve and Sam slipped into the observation side, where Clint already waited, knuckles white against the window ledge.

The door opened, and Bucky looked up from Beast, curled in his arms. He raised an eyebrow, and then his eyes widened. “Natalia.”

“Hello, Vanya,” Natasha said, and settled into the chair opposite him. Steve wondered if she’d renamed herself Natasha in his memory. 

“I didn’t know you were still alive.” Bucky muttered. 

“You didn’t know who I was,” Natasha said, almost kind. “They did a hard reset after the war ended. You couldn’t remember me.”

“You were still there,” Bucky grated. “I could remember you, on the edge of my memory. I should have- I should have tried harder to look for you.”

“And risked both of our deaths?” Natasha asked, and shook her head. “It was better for both of us, James.”

“Did they treat you right, here?” Bucky asked. “This must’ve been where you ended up, if they ravaged Red Room while you were there.”

“I— Yes,” Natasha played with her hands, resting on the table in front of her. “I wasn’t a prisoner. The Marshal told me I could go whenever I liked. I just… didn’t want to leave.”

“You moved on.” Bucky lifted his chin. “Does he treat you right?”

“It could be a woman, too. Remember Yelena?” Natasha chuckled, and Clint stood up. “Yes, he treats me right.” Steve spied her left hand slip to her stomach. Bucky had caught the motion as well, it seemed.

“If he doesn’t marry you,” he said, “I’ll kill him.”

“Great,” Clint muttered. “Now I have BOTH fathers on my ass.”

“I’ll marry her, if you’re so against it,” Sam snorted.

“Really?” Clint asked, looking up. Sam huffed and rolled his eyes.

“I need to report,” Natasha said, and held her hands across the table. “Look at me?” Bucky looked up, and hesitantly snaked his good hand forwards. Natasha began speaking rapidly in Russian, so quickly that when Steve looked over at Clint to see if he knew what she was saying even his eyebrows were furrowed in confusion. Bucky clipped out a short response and Natasha laughed. When she stood up, she leaned forwards to press her lips to his forehead, hand cupping his cheek. Bucky didn’t jerk away, and watched her leave with a small smile playing on his features.

“He loves her,” Steve said quietly.

“You love her,” Clint countered. “But I’m not worried about that. It’s a different kind of love.”

There was a tapping at the door and all three of them looked up. "Steve?" Bruce said, looking weary. "Fury wants you. You’re not going to believe the kind of activity we’re having."  

 

* * *

 

The control room was in chaos when Steve and Bruce reached it. Pepper, Gwen, Darcy, and Jane were hunched around the Breach monitor screen and Fury looked as though someone had shot his puppy.  Tony was pacing, with Natasha watching him, her arms folded, eyes tracking every move.

"There's activity, and it's too early to be an event." Jane said, looking frazzled. "We're not prepared— Cap is still injured and we haven't found any pilots who can fill in for him. Sam Wilson is a hard man to drift with."  

"Not my fault," Sam called, just as Steve said, “I was just sparring, actually. My leg is okay, I can Drift— actually, could someone get me a chair?” Jane stood up and offered her chair to Steve, who accepted gratefully. The monitor was awash with color, and as they watched, the breach  began  to churn red.  

“Shit, here we go." Darcy breathed. "One, two... wait… Four?  _Four_   more things just came through the Breach. What the   _fuck_?”  

Steve’s breath caught in his throat. “Four?!” Tony raged. “A quad attack? We’re not supposed to have those for _years_ yet.”  

“Weeks,” Jane said thickly, eyes glued to the monitor.

Gwen leaned in close to the monitor. “Those are far too small to be  Kaiju,” she said. “Their vitals are humanoid- I think they might be humans.”  

Fury straightened up slowly. “Romanov, take Rogers and Thor on a sweep. Find out who these people are, and what they want.”  

Natasha stood and offered a hand to Steve, who shook his head and got up, wincing as he put weight on his leg. “I’m fine,” he insisted to Bruce’s raised eyebrow. “Really. It’s just a bruise.”  

“Are you seriously lying about the extent of the injury?” Natasha asked, in French so no one else could understand her.  

Steve shrugged listlessly and hit the elevator button. “Yeah, well, it's healing.”  

“Hey, wait for me!” Sam suddenly yelled, and darted into the elevator after them. “No way you’re  leavin’ me behind on this one.”  

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Natasha said, and smiled at Sam in a way that gave Steve pause.  

“Wait,” he said, in French. “I thought Clint was kidding. Are you two—,”  

"Yes," Natasha replied. "In case you're wondering, the sex is amazing." Steve turned pink.  

Sam grinned lazily at Steve. “Hope you’re saying good things,” he teased.  

“No, I’m telling him how you’re bad in bed,” Natasha  snarked, and kissed Sam on the cheek. “Come on. We have an otherworldly mechanic to collect.”  

As it turned out, Thor was already waiting in the chopper. Waiting was perhaps the wrong word, as he was ecstatically swinging his hammer. “I hope they are formidable foes!” he said happily. “I have been itching for a good fight for a long time.”  

“What if they’re friendly?”  

“Then I shall welcome them with open arms and a glass of mead!”  

“You know, Thor, if you want a fight, you could always come to training,” Sam said cheekily. Thor shook his head.  

“Thank you, son of  Wil. However, you humans are so tiny. I should not like to crush you under the weight of my mighty hammer.”  

“You mean  Myuh  Myuh?” Darcy joked. Steve, who had not realized she was there, jumped.  

“I am appalled that you would resort to such a demeaning name—,” Thor blustered, and gave pause as the hammer thrummed in his hand.  

“See, she doesn’t mind.” Darcy grinned. At that point, the sound of the choppers drowned everything else out, and she settled for having a staring contest with Natasha, much to Thor’s amusement.  

“I hope they’re friendly.” Sam muttered. “I don’t wanna take out the wings, but I will if I have to.”  

“We’re here.” Natasha said sharply. “Look down there, Thor. Do you recognize any of them?”  

Thor squinted through the fog and the whipping trees and then let out a shout of joy. “My friends!” he called, and leapt from the helicopter.  

“Holy _shit_.” Darcy said, breaking the silence that followed. “Can he do that?”  

“Apparently,” Natasha muttered, watching Thor land on the ground and run across the beach. “All right, put us down.”  

When they stepped out of the chopper, Thor was happily gripping one of the four people on the beach in a tight hug. Steve’s eyes raked over them— they all seemed to be wearing medieval looking clothes. The single woman in the group had long black hair and a red cape and was grinning fondly at Thor. The men— one with golden hair who Thor was hugging, one squat with a big grin, and the other tall and willowy with short black hair pulled back from his face— watched in delighted fascination as Thor showed them how to do a  fistbump.  

“My friends!” Thor said jubilantly, when he spotted Steve and the others coming towards him. “This is the Lady  Sif  and the Warriors Three.”  

Sif  looked between the four of them with a fierce eye. “Any friend of Thor’s is a friend of mine,” she said finally, nodding her head respectfully to Natasha.  

“This is the Captain Rogers, his co-pilot Sam, son of  Wil, and the fearsome lady is Natasha.”  

“And I’m Darcy.” Darcy piped up. “I  tased  Thor when we first met.”  

“What are you doing here?” Thor asked  Sif. “You know I cannot return.”  

“What are you talking about?” The golden haired man exchanged a glance with  Sif. “Your father has tasked us with bringing you home.”  

“But—,” Thor cut himself off, and then his eyes narrowed.  

“Oh, no.” Darcy said. “That’s his mean face. Sam, where’s my  Taser?”  

“I got the wings, do you want your shield?” Sam asked, hand landing on Steve’s shoulder.  

“Your weaponry is unnecessary,” Thor said calmly. “I shall merely return to base and  reoutfit  the Jaegers so they may destroy my kind. I have a... how do you say it…  _bone to pick_   with my younger brother.”   

And with that, Thor began to stride back to the chopper. Slowly, everyone followed.  Sif  fell into step with Darcy.  

“What is this Taser?” she asked interestedly. “It must be incredibly powerful if it brought down Thor.”   

Darcy looked overjoyed.  

 

* * *

 

“Explain to me what the hell is going on.” Fury said sternly, from his place at the head of the conference table.

“My brother,” Thor said tightly, “has always been bitter when it concerns his lineage. He yearns for power. It would seem that he impersonated my father, cast me out of my realm, stripped me of my title, and hoped I would die here. In the process of creating this plan, he stumbled upon this world and has chosen it to be the world he reigns over. He seems to have found an… an _ally_ in the agency once called HYDRA.”

“He was always a snake, Thor’s brother.” Sif said quietly.

“I suspect that he created the Kaiju,” Thor said gravely. “He worked with your HYDRA to genetically engineer monstrous beings that would destroy civilization as we know it. I do not think he expected you to rise up against him.”

“Why are you only telling us now?” Maria spat, but Fury held up his hand.

“Is there a way to stop it?” he asked.

Thor nodded slowly. “The Breach may be closed by one of your Jaegers.”

“However, it can only be destroyed from the opposite side.” Sif said. “A Jaeger would have to go through the Breach to detonate on that side.”

Fury nodded. "We’ll do it today," he said firmly. 

"No," Natasha said. 

"No?" Fury glared at her with his one good eye. 

"No," Natasha said again. "We can't do it today. Steve is still injured- to send him out in the Jaeger again could aggravate his wound even worse. It could damage his leg." 

"Natasha," Steve said quietly, "I'm fine." 

"Like hell you are," Clint said suddenly. "Ever since the cat4, you've been limping worse than ever. Even Thor noticed, and Thor doesn't notice anything outside Jane, his crew, or the Jaegers." 

"We need all available men if we're going to make this work," Natasha snapped, "and no one else can drift with Sam Wilson. It would have to be Steve." 

"Then it has to be Rogers," Fury said. "Natasha, we cannot let this continue. Every day that passes is another day before a cat5  Kaiju  comes roaring through. We aren't prepared for that kind of event yet. We need to close the Breach and we need to do it now. We have Thor and his friends on board already." 

"We plan to name our Jaeger Mean Girls," Sif said proudly, and gave Darcy a  fistbump. 

"Nickname Regina," Darcy said smugly.  “Equipped with a special Taser designed to knock out giant space monsters.”

"And the Warriors Three can follow Thor to Siberia to confront his brother,"  Sif  said.  “You have built Jaegers that can carry three?”

“I want you two to check that you’re Drift compatible before you go out there,” Fury said to Darcy. “I do not want a second Harlem disaster.”

Bruce’s eyes narrowed. Tony reached over Steve to steady him, hand on his shoulder.

"What do we have to do?" Steve asked quietly, before Natasha could interrupt again. 

"You have to send a bomb into the Breach and detonate it from its source," Fury said. "That would mean sacrificing one of the Jaegers, but if we are successful, we wouldn't need them for anything except publicity  after this. Freedom Howl wouldn't even necessarily have to do anything. They could just stand there and look pretty. Barton and Romanoff could cover it.”

Steve set his jaw. “What will that bomb do?” he asked. “Destroy them all?”

“We hope so,” Gwen said. “Remember, they were genetically engineered with the strict purpose of destroying civilization. If we don’t destroy them all, who knows where they will go next?”

Steve slowly nodded. “Excuse me,” he said, and rose as best he could with his leg screaming protest at him. “I want to try one last time, before we head out.”

No one stopped him. They just watched him limp out. The golden haired man- Fandral, that was his name- paused him with a hand on his wrist and offered his sword. “To lean on,” he said softly. Steve nodded gratefully and found, even with the point pressing into the ground so hard it cut through the stone, that the burden was a little easier.

 

* * *

 

"Drift with me."   

"No."  

"Please." Steve implored. "I need you. We can win this battle. We can win this war,  _again_. We're  gonna  try and close the Breach, but they’re not sure if it’ll work, and I know we could do it if you'd just  _drift with me._ "  

Bucky hesitated. Before he could answer, however, the alarms started blaring, in the shorthand that meant double event. “You  gotta  go,” he said firmly.

“ _Please_.”

Bucky slowly shook his head. "I can't," he said. "If I were to hurt someone else, I don't know if I could forgive myself."  

Steve sighed. "I would never let you," he promised, but the words tasted dry on his lips, he had spoken them so often. "I would look out for you, just like you looked out for me. I'm with you  to  the end of the line, Buck."  

Bucky said nothing. Steve turned and walked away. There was no getting through to him today, it seemed.  

"I'll see you after the mission." he said, and shut the door behind him. To his surprise, Sam was leaning against the wall opposite the door. 

“No such luck?” Sam asked.  

Steve shook his head, and fought down the urge to drag Bucky out of his wrecked room into the hallway. “No such luck. We can do it. I know we can.” 

“Yeah, we can. And we will. And poo on him for missing out on all the fun.” Sam clapped him on the shoulder. Steve snorted. “Come on,  let's report.”

 

* * *

 

“All right, ladies and gentlemen, this is not a drill,” Marshal Fury said. “I repeat: this is not a fucking drill. Do you understand?”

The rangers nodded carefully. Steve's heart sank as he realized how few of them there were.

“All right. Thor, take the Warrior to Moscow, find your idiot of a brother, and knock some sense into him. Mean Girls, you’re on the cat3, with Black Arrow on support. Howler’ll be covering the cat4.”

“Alone?” Sam asked.

“Smasher’s on her way back,” Fury said. “You’ll get backup as soon as they arrive. Just hold it off til they get there.”

“Is that going to work?” Clint asked, looking stricken.

“Yes,” said Fury in his tone that told them not to argue with him, and Clint dropped it.

In the main bays, Peter was delicately painting flowers onto  Sif’s  helmet, leaning heavily on his crutch, while Darcy grinned in delight. “All right, you two, into the Jaeger,” Jane said fondly, wrestling the brush from Peter’s hand. “You wanted this, now you have to actually do it.” 

“We’re ready for this,” Darcy said, and winked at Sam as he walked past. Steve smiled, and Sif gave him a thumbs-up and smiled back. She looked more excited that Steve felt at that moment.

“Are you sure you’re up for this?” Sam asked, gesturing lamely to Steve’s leg.

“Yeah,” Steve said. “Yeah, it’ll be okay. I’ll numb it, I won’t feel it while we move, and I think Howler has a feature to move limbic control to one pilot anyway.”

“Hey, fuck you, making me take all the brunt of the work? Is that how it is?”

“Ooooh, that’s how it is.” Steve grinned at Sam’s free happiness, and wished with all his heart that he could still feel like that. “Let’s go Drift, man.”

Clint and Natasha fell into step next to them on the way to Black Arrow. Steve glanced over at them to see Natasha watching Sam, biting her lip with worry in her eyes. As if she could feel him watching her, she turned to look up at him, and he gave her a smile that (he hoped) was reassuring, while holding up his crossed fingers in an unspoken promise. Her lips quirked up, and then she was pushing Clint in the direction of the Jaeger.

“Hold on,” Sam said suddenly, and jogged over to the pair. Steve paused for a moment, watching as Sam gripped Clint by the shoulder and said something to him. Clint nodded, leaned forwards, and pressed a quick kiss to Sam’s lips before backing up to let Natasha say something to him herself.

Sam was nodding before Natasha even finished speaking and she slid her arms up around his neck to kiss him, something hard and desperate that had Sam breaking away to pull her close to him, and Clint hugging her from the other side. Steve had to turn away. It wasn’t his place to look, and in the end it just reminded him of Bucky and Peggy.

Steve was silent until they were suiting up, when finally his worry got the better of him and he blurted, “Are you happy?” 

Sam looked at him, startled, and then his eyes softened. “Yeah,” he said. “Nat told me- she said that they had always felt like something was missing between the two of them. Clint mentioned it once, although honestly I couldn’t tell because that man speaks in riddles- the point is, yes, I am happy.”

Steve reached out and clapped Sam’s shoulder. “I’m glad,” he said.

“Are you?” Sam asked, and Steve was at such a loss for words that he didn’t answer. He didn’t answer while they initiated the Handshake, not while they were in the air- he didn’t answer, in fact, until they were trekking towards the cat4 and he said, “Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m happy.”

 

* * *

 

The battle seemed to drag on for days, but every time Steve took a moment to glance at the clock the minutes seemed to be crawling by. Kaiju fights were by no means short, but this one seemed to be dragging on and on for a while. Clint and Natasha, on their other side, were slow and clunky in their movements, and Steve was beginning to suspect that Natasha was getting tired.

“We need to end this soon,” Sam muttered to Steve. “This can’t continue. We’re too evenly matched.”

“They’ll send us relief so we can head into the Breach soon,” Steve said soothingly. “It shouldn’t be long now.”

“NOPE,” Tony yelled. “It’s going to be a long time, boys. Focus on bringing down that Kaiju- we can’t close the Breach yet!”

“What do you mean we can’t close the Breach yet?” Sam yelled in anger.

“You need to be attached to a Kaiju to go through the breach!” Tony yelled, and he sounded shaky. “It’ll only let you through if you have the same biological genetics- it’s not going to work!”

“You drifted with a Kaiju again, didn’t you?” Steve asked, and he would have face palmed had he not been punching a Kaiju in the face.

“Bruce helped the burden along.” Tony said breathlessly. “Smasher’s still out of sight- stay where you are, we’re coming for backup.”

“Are you hooked in yet?”

“Yes, yes we are. Rhodey, tell them.”

“Get out of there, Rogers,” Rhodey snapped. “There’s nothing more you can do until backup comes and you’re still not 100 percent. That goes for you too, Wilson.”

“Yes, sir,” Sam looked at Steve. “This is one time that I’m going to agree with them.”

Steve made to move the Jaeger, but Sam stopped him. “I think we should get the fuck out of here, too,” he said.

“Out of… out of Howler?” Steve was hesitant to leave Freedom Howl behind. There were memories trapped within her walls- a ghost drift of a Jaeger- that might trigger Bucky, if he could bring him back.

“It’s too cumbersome,” Sam said. “We’ll do better and survive longer if we leave her behind.”

Steve had to admit that he was right. “Disconnect?”

“Let’s get the fuck out of here.” The Drift vanished from Steve’s mind and he hurried to unhook himself from the PONS.

“It’s injured, right?”

“Yeah, it’s limping at this point, but it’ll be here soon, go go go!” Sam moved closer to the escape pod. “Are you coming?”

“Yeah, course, you go ahead.” Steve headed for the pods— and that was when something heavy knocked into Howler, separating Sam and Steve in a wall of smoke.

When it had cleared to a haze, both Sam and the pod were gone.

“Sam!” Steve yelled, choking on the smoke cloud. “Sam, where are you? Did you make it?”  

“Sam?” Clint yelled frantically.

“I’m sorry!” Sam’s voice came crackling through, and Steve was struck with relief the likes he had never thought himself capable of. “I’m okay— look, I’m looking at this thing, and it’s _massive_! Let Tracker handle this motherfucker — they're on their way now, right?”  

"Yes we are," Bruce said sharply. "Steve, get out of the Jaeger and get far away."  

Shore was a hundred yards away. He could still salvage Howler, and bring Bucky to drift with him next time. They may have failed now, but they could succeed again. Steve slowly scrambled upright and limped back to the  PONS.  

“Steve, what the motherfuck are you doing?”  

“I can do this, Sam! I can get her back to the land!”

He could handle drifting alone for two minutes. Steve closed his eyes and let the peace wash over him. And there, lurking, was Bucky, in his memories and in his actions. If he just pretended Bucky was drifting next to him, maybe it wouldn't be so painful. Slowly, he began to limp Howler back to the island.  

“STEVE, GET THE FUCK OUT OF THERE.” Sam yelled. Natasha was yelling something unintelligible in his com again, but Steve could barely hear her. He was so close to the shore, he could almost taste the coconuts that he knew were there and—

There was a lull, a moment where everything froze and hung in space. Steve knew what was coming before the impact hit.

“God, I fucked it all up, didn’t I?” he said softly.

And then the  Kaiju  slammed headlong into Freedom Howl, splitting her in half straight down her middle and knocking her legs into the ocean below. The top half, however, the monster took with its claws. Steve closed his eyes tightly, waiting for impact with the island shore. He took comfort in knowing that this time he wouldn’t wake up again, in the Drift or out of it.  

 

* * *

 

_ “We’re on our way to your location, Cap! CAP!” Tony was screaming, but there was nothing but fuzz on Steve’s end.  _

_ “We lost Howler.” Pepper said miserably. Fury leaned his forehead against the wall and shook his head. Tony was yelling obscenities at no one in particular. Natasha wrapped her arms around herself and said nothing.   _

_ He was frozen. Rogers’… Steve’s last words kept replaying themselves in his mind. _

_ There was a vivid memory in his head, of a tiny Steve drowning in a hospital bed with tubes and wires snaking into his body. Peggy (Peggy?) was crying, sitting to Steve’s right. He was standing at the left. As he watched, Steve’s eyelashes fluttered, and the memory of himself choked on his breath. _

_ “Hey, buddy,” he said softly. _

_ Steve had blinked his eyes open and smiled weakly. “Hey, Bucky,” he said quietly. “God, I fucked it all up, didn’t I?” _

_ Then he was crying, and Bucky was crushing his hand in between both of his own to keep himself from crying. And in the present, Bucky snapped back into himself with a shaky breath, letting the memories of life before the war flood in. _

_ To the end of the line, he mouthed to himself. _

_ "Tracker, have you made ground?”  Pepper asked. _

_ "Yes, we have, but it doesn't make a fucking difference now, does it?" Tony snapped.   _

_ “We have vitals.” Bruce said suddenly, and Bucky jerked. “Oh my God, we have vitals. I need someone out here   _ stat _.”   _

_ Bucky was running before he could thing. "Wait, James!" Clint yelped, and Bucky paused for a half a moment to turn around. _

_ “Don’t call me James,” he said. “My name is  _ Bucky _.” _

_ And then he took off, down the stairs two at a time. _

 

* * *

 

Steve almost cried as the Drift shot around him. This was never how it was supposed to be- he was supposed to die, not be trapped in his own mind for the rest of time.  

“Steve! STEVE!”  

There it was. Steve sighed and turned around, expecting to see clean-shaven, pre-Jaeger Bucky grinning over him, berating him for some fight or another.  

Instead, there was no one.  

“Steve, please, for fuck’s sakes, you need to get out of this. You’re a fucking idiot who let a  Kaiju  rip our Jaeger apart. What were you hoping to accomplish with that, huh? You can’t die on me, you  _punk_. Do you hear me? Wake the fuck up!” 

He slammed into a memory, suddenly, of the bad night, the worst night. Bucky had dragged him out of the bathtub with tears cracking his voice, cradling him in his arms despite the blood staining their shirts. He’d been saying the same things then, almost, begging for Steve to wake up. Peggy had been clutching a cursing Howard, who was shakily pressing the screen of his phone. Steve had been only half dead, and had been cursing himself for failing, but Steve was now cursing himself for trying in the first place. How, _how_ could he have thought that was a good idea?

Then he remembered the first time Bucky had seen him after the final 'roid  cycle. He'd stared at him,  slackjawed, and now that Steve had experienced blankness in Bucky’s gaze he could feel the love radiating off of Bucky in waves. He could see the awe and delight in Bucky’s eyes, as well as the little tremor of fear that Steve had always caught but could never name- that  _what if he doesn’t need me anymore_  feeling that had nagged at Bucky until the day they’d been ripped apart.  

“Of course I knew,” he found himself mumbling, an echo of a memory. “Of course I knew he was afraid. We Drifted together. Nothing stays behind closed doors.”  

_Except_ , Natasha whispered in his ear,   _he didn’t know you were in love with him, did he?_

“You asshole. You ASSHOLE.” His hallucination of Bucky was crying now. “Get up, get up, get UP. I  _remember you_  and you’re going to leave me? I won’t even get the good end of the estate, you bastard, you never changed the fucking will.”  

“Well, our entire estate is Howler, and she’s too far gone right now,” Steve managed to choke out, and the Drift snapped shut around him.  

 

* * *

 

Steve woke up to something gripping his hand so tightly that if Erskine hadn’t pumped him full of ‘roids  back in the day, his hand would probably be broken.  

“Lay off,” he mumbled, and choked. There was frantic motion and then someone was adjusting the machinery around him to give him some air.  

“Sorry,” the voice said breathlessly, and the pressure loosened. Steve slowly turned his head and let his eyes flick open to rake up Bucky’s face.  

_Bucky_. Staring at him with those wide eyes exploding with love and fear and rage all mixed into one, with the relief shining through like the sun. This was not the man Steve had left in Bruce’s lab, before they went to close the Breach. This was his best friend, and Steve gripped his hand tightly.  

“The  Kaiju?” he asked.  

“Dead.” Bucky said, voice thick. “Stark and Banner took it out. I swear, it’s disconcerting to see little Tony all grown up.”  

Steve huffed on a laugh. “You get used to it. How’s… How’s our Jaeger?”  

“She’s gone, Cap. You wrecked her. I could divorce you for this.” Bucky’s tone was playful. “How could you?”  

“Can’t divorce a man you never married,” Steve joked.  

“Well, then maybe I’ll have to change that.”  

Steve’s breath caught in his throat as he stared at Bucky. They were silent for a long moment.  

“How long has it been since…?”  

“A week.” Bucky shrugged his metal arm. “It… hasn’t been easy. They wouldn’t let me in at first.”  

“Didn’t Tony explain everything to them?”  

“He did. Still wouldn’t let me in. It took Fury and Rhodey combined— and, speaking of him, holy shit, he turned into a badass— to get them to let me in. Oh, and Darcy. I think I’m in love with her, she’s amazing.”  

Steve blinked at Bucky hard. “But… you’re   _you_ , right? I’m not dreaming?”  

“Nah,  punk, you’re not dreaming.” Bucky smiled affectionately at him. “I’m here.  To the end of the line. I  dunno  if I’m  _alone_  up in my head, but  if  I'm not then  the Soldier is in the backseat now. It's me.”  

Steve smiled. “I missed you,” he murmured. “Like a missing limb. No, worse. I missed you like someone ripped my soul right out of my chest.”  

Bucky tipped his forehead to rest against Steve’s. “Yeah. I always knew you couldn’t survive without me.”  

 

* * *

 

Six days later, Bucky was leaning against his shoulder as they watched crap 90’s TV when there was a knock on the door to the room and Darcy poked her head in. "Hurry up and get out here, boys," she said. "Fury wants us to try again."

"Is that a good idea?" Bucky asked, hand tightening on Steve's shoulder protectively. Darcy looked solemn.

"He wants it done," Steve said quietly. "He wants to finish it. So let's finish it." He looked up at Bucky, who was watching him warily. "Drift with me," he asked, for the sixth time.

Bucky grinned. "Yeah," he said. "I'll drift with you."

They sat up as one, Bucky scrambling to his feet to give Steve a hand out of the bed. Steve found that the hole in his leg had healed, and he could walk with barely any limp. But, for some reason, the feeling of dread in his chest was expanding. He said nothing- simply leaned heavily on Bucky as they left the room and headed towards the bays.

"Major lineup change," Darcy told them. "Bruce was okay drifting. Guess the arc reactor in Tony's chest was able to balance out the rage monster. Marvel and Smasher are fighting in Juneau. Been up there for three days now. We got Scarlet and Speed Demon- that’s Billy and Tommy- to go up to give one of them a break, now that Pietro healed up again. Me and Sif are headed out with you. And guess who they found out can drift with Sam?"

"Who?" Steve asked.

"Clint," Darcy said smugly.

"What about Natasha?" Steve asked.

"There was a scare. Rhodey benched her."

"Bet she's happy about that," Bucky said.

"Clint and Sam are, and that's enough to keep her placated." Darcy shrugged. “Anyway, they’ll be in Arrow, since Clint doesn’t want to leave her behind. But I think they were going to try and rename her, because Clint and Sam are five year old boys at heart. Oh, here we are.”

Darcy ran to Sif and started some complicated-looking secret handshake. Sam and Clint were staring up at Black Arrow, where Jessica and Anya were hanging upside down, touching up on the red spider marks. As Steve and Bucky approached, Thor came thundering over.

“Friend Wilson!” Thor boomed. “I have made many modifications to the Hawk’s Jaeger for you.”  

“Wings?” Sam asked eagerly.  

“Two pairs!” Thor said proudly. Sam’s eyes went huge and he looked ready to cry.  

“I  wanna  name our giant robot!” Clint yelled. “I’m  gonna  call her… Flappy Bird.”  

Then they both doubled over in laughter, and Natasha was shaking her head at her two boys. Steve grinned as he and Bucky moved closer.  

“You  gonna  be good to go without me?” Steve joked, bumping shoulders with Sam.  

“Hey, c’mon. You and Buck, back in action? I can’t get in the way of that. Besides,  Clint’ll  go stir-crazy not drifting with anyone.”  

“Hey!”  

“You know you will, birdbrain.”  

“I asked Thor to try and outfit another three-person Jaeger,” Bucky said. Sam stared at him in awe and then looked at Thor, who nodded enthusiastically. “In case you ever want to try. If you’re compatible with  _Stevie_ , I’m sure you’re compatible with me, too.” Steve glared at him. Bucky just squeezed his hand gently.  

“Maybe someday!” Sam said, and he grinned widely at the pair of them. “But for today, it’ll be Flappy Bird in action.” That set him and Clint off all over again.  

“Go get ready,” Natasha said fondly, and kissed them both on the cheek. “And you two,” she added sternly. “Time to go close that breach.” 

“Are you ready for this, big guy?” Bucky asked, when they’d moved away. Steve glanced at him and saw, for a fleeting second, a shadow pass over his face. 

“I’m not worried about drifting with you.” Steve said firmly. “You hear me?” 

Bucky blinked at him, and then slowly nodded. 

They were silent as they rose into the Jaeger. Hooking in with Bucky was like something out of a dream, and when the Drift rushed around them Steve felt a weight that had been on his chest since he came out of the ice lift itself up and float away. 

“I should have told you years ago.” Steve muttered, and Bucky looked over at him. “Years. After the ‘roids. I could see it in the Drift, and I always thought you were an idiot for not saying anything to my face.” 

Bucky was very still. Steve could feel their heartbeats slowly begin to sync up again, and felt the last pieces of his shattered soul slide back into place. 

“I never did have very good timing.” Steve said, finally. 

“No, you’re actually the worst at it.” Bucky said. "Look, let’s save the feelings jam for after the crazy, ridiculous suicide mission, yeah?” 

Steve nodded. 

Something in the Drift caught his eye and he paused, turning towards it. It was a vision of Bucky; long-haired, wild eyed Bucky standing in front of the launch bay yelling something at Peter, who was shaking his head. 

“I need to get to him!” Bucky was yelling.  

Peter was saying, “Dude, they’re on their way. If you try to fly after them you’ll miss them.” 

And that was when Tracker Gamma arrived back at the bay, and the PONS opened up and there was Tony, cradling Steve in his arms, and it was disconcerting to see your own still body, Steve realized. 

“Let me drift with him,” Bucky snarled. 

“Listen,” Bruce said, quietly, as he stepped out of the PONS. “We haven’t tried drifting with an unconscious mind since before he went on ice. We don’t know if it’ll work again- and especially with his mental history, which I do know about, although you did a nice job covering it up.  Trying to do this could  _kill him_.” 

“He’s dead if I don’t,” Bucky said. “At least there’s a chance that it’ll work if I try. _Please_. I just got him back and now I’m going to lose him again?” 

“Rogers, you are out of alignment,” Fury’s voice said, filtering in. 

“No, he isn’t,” Bucky said. “He’s all right.” 

“I can’t lose him again,” Bucky pleaded, in the memory. “I   _can’t_ ,  not after I just got him back. Please, Dr. Banner, I can bring him back. I know I can.” 

“And what about your mental integrity?” Bruce asked, eyes flashing dangerously. “How can I be sure that you’re stable?”

“I can’t be sure that you are, Dr. Banner, and yet I trust you.” Bucky said. “Do you trust me?”

Bruce looked stricken. Then, he let out a long sigh. “Hook ‘im up, Tony,” he said. “Might as well try.”

“Thought you said we’d save the feelings jam for after the crazy suicide mission,” Steve joked, but his voice caught on the words. 

"Some things you just can't control," Bucky grinned, and the Drift snapped shut suddenly. "All right. Back to the crazy suicide mission."

The chopper ride was silent. Steve spent most of the time drinking in Bucky’s bundle of feelings in the back of his head and the feeling of sharing a headspace with him again. After all this was over, Steve thought, behind his locked door where Bucky couldn’t see it, he was going to back Bucky into a corner and show him exactly how he felt about him. And then, later, he’d find Sam, and apologize, because he loved Drifting with Sam, but there was no fucking way he was giving this up again.

“Good luck,” Carol said, sounding oddly thick, and they dropped, further than they ever had before. Falling was an odd feeling.

The ocean was very dark and cold. And very, very quiet. "This is disconcerting," Clint griped. "I woulda thought we'd have seen at least one fish by now."

"Shut up, Barton," Tony and Bruce said, as one.

"Sweetie, you're not good at breaking awkward silences," said a familiar voice, and Clint squealed.

"Katie! You're okay?"

"No worse for wear," Kate said, though she sounded exhausted. "Go close that goddamned breach so I never have to fight another fucking cat4 in my life, okay?"

"Yes ma'am." Sam and Clint said together.

“Incoming,” Carol said sharply. “This is it, boys, the big one. Focus.”

The Kaiju roared out of the depths— from across the ocean, Bucky saw Flappy Bird actually take a step back as two cat4s emerged, one of them with a spearhead like Leatherback had had, the other one looking like a giant dinosaur. Steve waited for Clint to name the two Kaiju, but he was suspiciously quiet.

“Let’s go,” Bucky said, and they started to run.

Fighting with Bucky was not the same as Steve remembered. Bucky fought like he’d been taught in the Red Room— effectively but with none of the same military style moves they’d used before. It was almost graceful— Steve wondered if fighting with Natasha would be like fighting with Bucky, given their shared background in the Red Room.

“None of that in the Drift,” Bucky said sharply, and Steve slammed the door on his thoughts. “Sorry, I just… don’t like remembering that place.”

“Sorry,” Steve said, and grimaced. “Man, how does anyone fight in one of these clunky monsters?”

“I was just about to—,” Bucky cut off and grinned. “Headspace.” he said. “You’re finally starting to pick up on my mannerisms, you nostalgic bastard, you.”

“It was the only way I found to cope,” Steve said quietly, and Bucky’s grin faltered.

“One down!” Darcy crowed, and from across the ocean Mean Girls and Flappy Bird slapped a high-five that sent waves rippling across the other Kaiju even as they started doing a victory dance.

"We have the bomb," Bruce said suddenly, sharply. "We have the fucking bomb— why does no one _tell_ me these things?"

And then Tracker Gamma barreled into the last remaining Kaiju, sending it careening into the Breach with Tracker locked around it. Steve waited with baited breath.

"We're through!" Peter suddenly yelped. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, except for Pepper, who sounded as though she were crying.

"All right, everyone out," Steve said. "Sam, make sure Darcy and Sif get out okay?"

"On it!"

"We'll be there stat." Steve switched off the coms quietly.

"What are we waiting for again?" Bucky asked.

"A sign that it worked and two men didn't just go to their deaths.”

Someone was yelling something into the coms, and Steve shook his head to clear the ringing in his ears. Bucky was watching it with an unreadable expression in his eyes. Steve pressed the button again. “What?” he said.

That was when something slammed into the side of their Jaeger, knocking it two hundred yards away from the Breach. "Fucking fuck!" Bucky swore, and switched on the coms again. "What the fuck was that?"

"Cat5," Peter whispered. "Biggest one yet."

"Reroute those choppers, get Flappy Bird back down there—,"

"No!" Steve yelled. "Get them to the dome and get them safe."

"Steve, don't be a fool!"

"You heard the man," Bucky said gruffly, as they drew the sword. "That's an order, Rhodey.”

“We can handle this,” Steve said, looking at Bucky.

“And if we don’t, well, Nat gets everything.” Bucky replied, and shut the coms off. “Do we really have this?”

“We have the best numbers of anyone in the Dome.” Steve said. “if anyone can do it, it’s us.”

“Alone?”

Steve thought back to Sam, making a play that saved Clint and Natasha from certain death while allowing the cat4 they’d been fighting to take a bite out of Hong Kong. “We can save the most people if it’s just us.”

Their sword made contact with the shell of the cat5. “Oh, I hope that Thor kicked his brother’s ass so this thing is just a mindless chunk of meat,” Steve sighed.

“Well, Loki’s in chains in their dimension, so yeah.”

“Direct hit!” someone suddenly yelped through the coms, and Steve started.

Something shot close to their Jaeger and Steve shot around. “What was that?”

“A pod, I think,” Bucky replied. “Think it was Dr. Banner? Think they did it?”

In answer, the Kaiju in front of them wobbled for a moment before beginning to fall. “They did it!” Bucky yelped. “Stevie! I think we—,”

The Kaiju’s claw caught the Jaeger in the knees and brought it crashing down. The systems shut down, Steve and Bucky yanked from the Drift as abruptly as if Bucky had been ripped from the PONS again, and they stumbled to opposite sides of the Jaeger’s helmet. _Initiating emergency protocols_ , said a cool voice that was not JARVIS.

“Steve,” Bucky said, pulling his helmet from his head and scrambling up from where they’d been dislodged. Water was beginning to trickle into the Jaeger from small holes in the side.

“The pressure’s gonna get overwhelming soon,” Steve said. “We need to get out of here.”

Moving in the drivesuits was an effort. Steve was limping again as he circled the helmet to Bucky’s side, his old stab wound aggravated by the crash. He had a sinking feeling in his chest as Bucky helped him stand that was held true when Bucky let out a long string of curses.

"There's only one pod in this piece of junk?" Bucky yelped. "That's a fucking joke."

The water was rushing in now— it was almost up to Steve's knees. There was a vicious memory in the Drift that he fought away. The blood was rushing in his ears and he could barely hear his own voice as he said, ”Get in the pod, Bucky."

Bucky was shaking his head before Steve could even finish. “No.”

”Get the fuck out of here!” _Let me save your ass for a change, please,_ he tried to beg, but the words got stuck in his throat.

"NO! Not without you!" Bucky snarled, and Steve just stared at him. "Did that memory mean _nothing_ to you? Or were you not listening when I said, 'I can't lose him again'? Nah, Steve, you aren't leaving me behind anymore. And I'm not leaving you."

Steve stared at the pod, and then at Bucky, who watched him defiantly. The water was up to his waist now.

There was a way out. There had to be. This wasn’t the end, not even close. If Steve was wrong, however, and there was no way out- well, he was not about to let anyone die for him, not now, not ever. He wanted to say as such to Bucky. However, the water was up to his chest, and they had no more time.

"I love you," he said quietly, and then he slammed his elbow into Bucky's face.

He wondered, in the end, if that had conveyed everything he wanted to say.

 

* * *

 

_ "So by all rights, he shouldn't have even been drifting," Clint said. _

_ "Yeah, not as such," Sam muttered. _

_ "And you drifted with him anyway?" _

_ "I helped him," Sam said. "More than most people will ever understand." _

_ "Hey, we're back!" Tony's voice came crackling through the speakers. "Someone wanna come pick us up, though? We're kind of stuck mid-Pacific, it's not fun." _

_ "What the fuck do you mean, the Pod deployed without him?" Fury yelled suddenly. "Did he fucking knock you out or something?" _

_ "I'm gonna kill Steve," Sam muttered. "I'm going to personally fly into the Pacific and find him, and then I'm going to kill him." _

 

* * *

 

Bucky was sitting morosely in the middle of the Pacific when the chopper finally came to collect him.

He had no voice. He’d spent at least an hour screaming curses at whatever world Thor had hailed from, and another hour in the water searching desperately for any sign of Steve. Steve’s last words still rang clear in his ears- _I love you, I love you, I love you,_ repeating like a mantra, and Bucky’s mind was still clogged of things he didn’t remember or understand but Steve was right there, prominent, grinning at him with that easy look in his eyes. 

It had been a day and Bucky had already lost Steve again. He almost couldn’t take it.

Sam looked murderous when Bucky climbed on board the chopper. Tony was curled in a back corner— even Clint looked subdued, where he leaned in the back, Natasha’s head on his shoulder.

The chopper was silent for a long time.

“I don’t blame you,” Sam said, suddenly, and Bucky started. “Sorry. I just wanted to tell you. I don’t blame you.”

“I should have stopped him,” Bucky said, miserably, and Natasha looked at him, concerned, as his voice cracked. “I should have been able to—,”

“Shut up,” Sam said forcefully. “It wasn’t your fault. It was ours, for assuming that he was still okay enough to Drift.”

Panic stabbed Bucky in the chest. “He’s not—?”

“We were worried for a while, but he wasn’t showing any signs,” Natasha said.

“Guess we were wrong,” Tony grumbled, and rolled over. The chopper fell silent for a long time.

“I don’t think he wanted to die.” Sam said, finally. “I think he wanted you to live.”

That, more than anything, hurt Bucky’s soul, and before he knew it Natasha had wrapped her arms around his neck and held on.

“He’s not dead,” Bucky said, in Russian, since he knew Natasha would understand. “He’s not. He _can’t_ be, Natalia, he can’t be dead.”

“I believe you, Bucky,” Natasha said quietly. “And I hope, more than anything, that you’re right.”

 

* * *

 

The Dome was full of jubilation when they arrived back. The kids were laughing and hugging each other- Darcy threw her arms around Bruce’s neck as soon as she spotted him, and Clint was immediately accosted by Kate and dragged away from the rest of the group.

“Where’s Steve?” Sharon asked, finally, smile lighting up her entire face. Natasha was shaking her head frantically, and Bucky wasn’t sure if she was directing it at him or at Sharon, but it didn’t matter. They’d find out soon enough.

“He’s gone,” he said, because dead didn’t sit right on his tongue (there wasn’t a body and until there was Steve Rogers was _not dead_ ). “There was one pod, and… and he gave it to me.” Sharon’s face fell. Peter turned to face Bucky, shock evident on his face. “Well, he knocked me out and shoved me in it, even though I told him I wouldn’t leave him.” Bucky laughed bitterly. By this point everyone in the Dome was listening. Jane had her hands over her mouth, eyes wide and glistening. “Sorry. I should- yeah. We shouldn’t be talking about this. We should be happy that we stopped the clock. Right? We stopped it?” _Oh, god, if Steve is really dead and there are still Kaiju, I’m going to kill someone._

“It’s stopped,” Carol said. “The Breach was closed.”

Bucky let out a shaky exhale. “Good. That’s… good.” People were staring at him- the anxiety was overwhelming. “I’m gonna go outside for a second.”

The night air was cool against his skin. It was peaceful out here. For the first time in a very long time, there were fireflies.

“Damn it, Steve,” Bucky said, leaning heavily against the front rail. “Is this supposed to be some vicious payback for fifteen years ago?”

There was no answer. Only the stars, twinkling cruelly above him.

 

_fin_

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to ask me about anything- including, but not limited to, the Young Avengers' adventures as Jaeger pilots, the war that had Natasha come to the Hong Kong shatterdome, the mutant division of Jaeger pilots in Malibu (I have several thousand words of that already), anything from before Steve being frozen, and anything about after the end of the fic; or any little details about the fic you don't understand- you can ask me about it on [Tumblr](http://citadelofswords.tumblr.com). 
> 
> This fic is far from over.
> 
> You can also find the story of how Clint took out that Kaiju without use of a Jaeger [here.](http://aarchiive.tumblr.com/post/85432703820/time-to-dance-motherfuckers)
> 
> The warnings include: depression and PTSD, non-graphic descriptions of suicide attempt, some violence, strong language, past drug use (although it was prescribed? but it was experimental, so the warning remains), and canonical temporary character death.
> 
> There is a reason why major character death is not labeled. If you don't already know why, you'll find out soon enough. A sequel is in the works.


End file.
